Cannes Lions

The Global Warming Series

WUNDERMAN THOMPSON, Mexico City / THE NORTH FACE / 2023

Presentation Image
Supporting Images
Supporting Images

Overview

Entries

Credits

Overview

Background

World temperature has risen unprecedentedly in the past 8 years; if it continues, by 2050 it will reach +2.0°C; if we don’t stop this by 2030, there will be no turning back.

But when we talk about individual actions to face the present and the future, we are not willing to give up our comfort to preserve our planet. Clinging on fashion and our uncontrolled consumerism produces pure poison for our home.

As a brand that invites us to never stop exploring, aware of the negative impact of Fast Fashion industry, we work to mitigate our environmental impact by taking care of the processes, materials, and durability of our clothes. This time, we wanted to act together with Pronatura Mexico AC to have a positive impact, but to make people act, we needed to take them out of their comfort zone with a message that would raise awareness.

Idea

In recent months, the interest of the world population in Artificial Intelligence and new realities boomed. We leveraged this new context to talk about something that concerns humanity: our future.

Introducing "Global Warming Series" (a special collection that hopefully we will never have to launch) to survive in the hostile and unexplorable world of 2050.

With scientific data, algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, and our brand's Fashion Designers we created this collection with two clear objectives: to raise awareness about current environmental issues and to raise funds to fight climate change.

Each piece of clothing was designed to protect us in extreme climates and has different gadgets according to the environment (air quality, temperature, radiation intensity, tide behavior, etc.).

The message behind this collection is strong: we do not want this future, we do not want to become a brand to survive, we want to remain a brand to explore.

Strategy

People are concerned about the effects of climate change, yet they don't believe there is understandable information, nor are they willing to give up their comfort and convenience to be more sustainable.

We've read all about climate change, there are over 20 million hits on the internet, but the needle doesn't seem to move. Why? People consider it a distant, unrealistic, and harmless fact.

Therefore, we had to bring the consequences of climate change we will experience in 2050 to the present. We had to make the future a reality, today.

We seized Earth Day (one of the few moments when the conversation about global warming increases) through what the brand does best: clothing to explore. We sent an unsettling message, a "common" launch, but that in its first lines would make people's skin crawl.

Execution

With input from projective calculations and AI, our Fashion Designers developed striking clothes that blend futuristic fashion with unsettling functionalities. As a critique of our industry, they were made with reusable materials aimed to protect humans in 3 extreme climates:

58ºC

"WarmTech" suits to keep us cool, turbines to purify polluted air, solar batteries with GPS, face masks, and humidity leaks.

Floods

Life jackets that inflate in 2.5 seconds, hoods with soothing sounds in case of tsunamis, DryPants with waterproof atomic density, and LongLight lights.

-60ºC

Polygonal coats to break 120 km/h winds and keep snow from sticking, thermal pants, and nanotech sensors that activate a protective hood.

How did we bring the hostile and unrecognizable world of 2050 to users? In the Metaverse, where they customized their avatars and, for the first time, "felt" what it will be like to wear special clothes to survive and not to explore. The audience was immersed in a sad, harsh, and very uncomfortable atmosphere, where they chose what temperature they wanted to give the planet, and subsequently, they could explore that environment with the necessary clothing. Those same garments were sold as NFTs in the Metaverse and all the money raised was donated to the NGO Pronatura Mexico AC.

At the same time, we created an informative website where our users could learn more technical information, features, blueprints, designs, creative process, videos, and renders of the clothes; to finally be invited to live the immersive experience in the Metaverse.

Outcome

Earth Day is the perfect time to ignite the spark of awareness, so we seized it. Since the moment of the launch, we have thrilled our community: in just 2 weeks we managed to increase the conversation around sustainability by 700% compared to last year, an unprecedented number for the brand.

It had never been so trendy to talk about saving the planet: “Global Warming Series” became the brand's most successful campaign in Social Media. Organically, it had an impact of +150K users and 160K impressions; it echoed among them as never before and boosted the average engagement of the brand to 195% with 99% of positive sentiment.

Conversation overflowed our community, crossed borders, and reached over 13.5 million people in 15 countries like Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, and Spain; thus, we attained more than 800K USD in Earn Media.

Similar Campaigns

12 items

The North Face Pride

C41, Arcore

The North Face Pride

2023, THE NORTH FACE

(opens in a new tab)