This project is a great example of how to, through the use of an artistic piece and an event, bring a fundamental concept directly to the public, institutions and media: with each of our decisions today we choose whether we drown or stay afloat in the future. By placing a mysterious and shocking piece for the whole world to see and theorize about, and revealing the explanation through a film, we linked the concept to the brand’s activity, and spread awareness about an important environmental issue. We gave it for the first time a face everybody recognized and could see.

BBK is a banking foundation in the Basque Country that’s been working for years for the development of the region. BBK’s main goal is to help preservate and optimize the region’s state of welfare, and wanted to educate, sensitize and raise awareness about the importance of sustainable competitiveness.

We detected through research that our society has grown comfortable and oversaturated with sustainability messages. Our goal was to wake up this numbed society, materializing how our daily decisions may determine how our society will ultimately look like in the near future.

To do so, we installed a sculpture of a girl in the River, in collaboration with the Mexican hyperrealist artist Ruben Orcozo, and a short-film in a two-phase campaign, one off-brand to generate conversation, awareness and media attention. And an on-brand phase to showcase what could happen to us in the near future making a call to act now.

By placing a giant sculpture by surprise in the middle of the main river of one of the main cities in the Basque Country, we ensured to launch a direct message to the general public, as well as environmental institutions and organizations. After everybody had time to see it, and the media had covered the story, we released the short-film that explained the environmental message behind the head, based on sustainable competitiveness, providing a recognizable face for people to associate with the idea.

Sustainable competitiveness was a complex concept that the brand wanted to transmit to the general public in order to raise awareness about how our decisions today in terms of sustainability will affect our future, but keeping the positive input that we still have the power to change things. We created a living sculpture inspired by a real girl, and installed in the middle of the river of Bilbao, designed to rise and disappear with the tide. To make a futuristic short-film we relied on foresight, a field that generates knowledge about the future, collaborating with one of Spain’s most renowned professionals, who helped us determine a series of events that the protagonist will live in the future.

We targeted the general population, institutional authorities and to bring the issue to the UN. We managed to engage with both national and international organizations and institutions, as well as international media.

It was a two-phase campaign: on September 22th, 2021, the surprise installation of a giant living sculpture in the river ot Bizkaia, in the Basque Country; then, on October 1st, the release of a short-film starring the girl that inspired the sculpture to portray a future suffering the consequences of our unsustainable actions today.

Even though it was a regional campaign, it reached both national and international media and institutional authorities.

The campaign went viral reaching +3000 impacts in media and press, with 30% of international coverage as it was present in 75 different countries, and an audience of +200 thousand people, with an AVE of 5 million euros (+87% in KPIs).With a sentiment of 100% positive among all coverage.

The news about the project went viral on social media around the world, with more than 300 million views. Due to its huge success, the film was aired in prime-time on Basque Country’s main TV channel, eitb.

Beyond the media impact, the project allowed the BBK Foundation to engage in affairs with both national and international organizations and institutions, as they got interested in the project (AVAAZ, Basque Country’s government, Greenpeace…)