To promote sustainable actions, a bold entry visa process was created: Arrivals MUST sign a pledge, stamped in their passports, to be good environmental stewards. Signed before an officer, this eco-promise is dedicated to Palau’s children. The stamp is central to the campaign and expressed in supporting media.

Designed in five key languages, the stamp had to be legible with repeated use. The logo, inspired by the Palau flag and “sign here” symbol, is incomplete until signed. Every individual who signs it creates a unique version of the logo. Physicals stamps of the pledge, typography and educational icons were made, their textured imprints scanned for authenticity. The photography captures Palau’s fragile beauty, underscoring the promise of the Palau Pledge to leave the environment as you find it. The Palau Govt passed a new law on 6 Dec 2017 directing immigration officials to use the Palau Pledge entry visa stamp. The agency created the idea of the Palau Pledge based on the client’s brief. The agency worked with the client (the Palau Legacy Project, a sustainable tourism marketing body) and government to implement the new policy. Officers received training in the new process.

Launched at the UN, the Pledge garnered enormous coverage for Palau’s conservation efforts. Its social, cultural, and political impact is local and global:

• Over 2 million tourists will sign Pledge within first 10 years

• In first weeks of launch, Pledge achieved 1.7 billion earned media impressions (for $0 spend)

• Pledge endorsed by global organisations/ leaders in politics, conservation, and tourism, including UN, World Economic Forum, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Kerry (Former US Secretary of State) to name a few

• The first country to incorporate environmental practices into its immigration laws

While Palau is a small nation, its efforts to mitigate mass tourism’s effects can be seen on a global scale. Already nations including New Zealand have expressed interest in creating their own visitor Pledge. By taking steps to sustainably manage its tourist population, Palau hopes other countries will take action to protect their environment.

Key target markets for the campaign were:

1. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean tourists - the largest groups of tourists come from these countries.

2. Local Palauan residents, including tour operators, in order to garner their support.

The strategy was to ensure that enforcement and encouragement is seen as being everyone’s job.

We set out to develop a world-first initiative that would mitigate the cumulative effects of tourism and provide a solution to sustainably managing Palau’s expanding tourist population – crucial to its economic development.

By reaching visitors as soon as they entered the country, we could: capture their attention to set the agenda for their stay; and encourage them to consider their behaviour and make a conscious decision to protect the Palauan environment and respect the island culture.

A sharp rise in tourist numbers is impacting the environment of island-nation, Palau. Yearly, 160k guests enter Palau, which has a 20k population. The costs of environmentally destructive behaviour are often difficult to gauge on an individual level; they aren’t the result of any one person’s careless actions but of aggregate actions over time. The objective was to promote ecologically responsible behaviour amongst tourists and locals, ensuring enforcement and encouragement was everyone’s job.