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WE ARE SOCIAL, Paris / WORLD WILDLIFE FUND (WWF) / 2018
Overview
Credits
CampaignDescription
Deforestation and environmental disasters tend to only catch the attention of a very local and educated target. Our idea was to create a data allegory and find an original angle, popular and appealing enough to open the debate to a wider public and therefore provide a stronger reach for the campaign. Thus we decided to compare the size of the gold mine with football fields, to help people realize how large the gold mine would be, and to make the topic more “mainstream”, using the popularity of football, and illustrating how disastrous the Montagne d’Or project would be on our environment.
MediaStrategy
Since in order to extract the gold, the developer plans to use 57,000 tons of explosives, 46,500 tons of cyanide, 195 million litres of fuel, and deforest 1,513 hectares of land, the equivalent of about 2,161 football fields, WWF France presented a disaster film on a football pitch. In the film, the French footballer Ibrahim Cissé runs and crosses a first field, then two, then three … As his sprint progresses, he is confronted with various elements in the fields: there’s a flood, then obstructions in the form of mining equipment, then falling trees. Ibrahim Cissé keeps running, braving all obstacles, including explosives and wild animals, before finally collapsing on the ground besides a large crater, completely out of breath and exhausted.
Outcome
With no media budget, the campaign generated, within 5 days after launch:
Over 600,000 organic views across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
A total reach of 32 million, including opinion and political leaders
Thousands of people calling out Emmanuel Macron to say “STOP” to Montagne d’Or
An organic Trending Topic on Twitter France on the day of the launch
More than 11,000 signatures in 5 days (versus an average of 10 000 signatures per month usually on the WWF France website)
International press coverage from France to the US, from Africa to China, from Germany to Australia in environment, sports and News press titles (Slate, BFM TV, The Ecologist, The Drum…)
Relevancy
When we discovered that the gold mine project would involve the use of 57,000 tons of explosives, 46,500 tons of cyanide, and 195 million liters of fuel to destroy 1,513 hectares of forests i.e. the equivalent of 2,161 football fields and additionally would threaten 2,000 endangered species, we found an original way to challenge this aberration and influence public opinion and the French Président Emmanuel Macron to say “STOP” to the project. Throughout the film, as the French footballer Ibrahim Cissé runs through several football fields, the key data collected by WWF’s engineers and mathematicians are illustrated through explosions, deforestation.
Strategy
A large amount of data illustrating the programmed environmental disaster of the project was collected by WWF’s engineers and mathematicians - bringing value to the message: a gold mine as big as 2,161 football fields, deforestation of 1,513 hectares including a deforestation of 575 hectares of primal forests with high ecological value, 54 million tons of ore snatched away from the mountain, 57,000 tons of explosives, 46,500 tons of cyanide, 195 million liters of fuel, just to get 1.6 grams of gold per ton of ore, endangering 2,000 species. We decided to use one of those data points, the size of the gold mine, as big as 2,161 football fields, as a starter point for the creative idea. This comparison with football fields is there to reach an audience for our campaign, while using a popular reference that speaks to them.
Synopsis
Since the beginning of the 1990s, French Guyana has seen an increase in gold mining due to rising gold prices on international markets and the development of new mechanised techniques imported from Brazil. Led by the Russian multinationals Nordgold and Canadian Columbus Gold, Montagne d’Or is an industrial gold mine project that is planned for construction in the French Amazonia. WWF France estimated this project would have disastrous impacts on the environment in addition to being an economic mirage. That is why they decided to launch the #StopMontagnedOr campaign, with one main objective: to influence public opinion and the French Président Emmanuel Macron to say “STOP” to the project - currently being the subject of public debate in Guyana.
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