How do you create a campaign that influences over 80 national governments, 15,000 lawmakers, generating 2 million pledges from people from 181 countries? By making it personal for all 7.5 billion people on earth.

WWF had no budget to buy the media it needed to engage an audience at this scale. Instead we created a single, unforgettable fact that was relatable to every person and picked up by every major news channel across the world, compelling millions of people to act.

Modern life is built on plastic but it has created an environmental catastrophe. The crisis was however being tackled on an ad-hoc, largely symbolic basis.

The only way to stop plastic is a globally binding treaty, the only way to do that is lobby governments.

BRIEF

Galvanise enough public support to enable the WWF to lobby governments to support the treaty.

OBJECTIVES

1: Attitude – grab the global attention.

KPI: Reach 1.75 billion people, 100,000 organic posts.

2: Behaviour - galvanize the planet’s people into action.

KPI: 1 million supporters, from 50 different countries.

3: Action – generate governments commitment.

WWF needed half of the UN’s members to commit to a globally binding plastic treaty to start its negotiation. This was securing 97 (over 50% so that it forces a vote) of the 193 member nations ahead the 2021 UN Environment summit.

KPI: Public commitment from 97 countries by 2020.

IDEA: Your Plastic Diet

Our diets now contain plastic, so our bodies are inadvertently becoming infested with plastic pollution.

We found we’re ingesting 100,000 microplastics a year, this equates to 250 grams of plastic which means people are consuming 5 grams of plastic pollution every week. What plastic object weighs 5 grams and is globally ubiquitous, with 20 billion of them in use? A credit card.

By quantifying the huge amount of data into a single fact and visualizing it into a universally recognizable device, it made the statistics personal and ACTIONABLE and plastic pollution UNFORGETTABLE. It made the plastic problem PERSONAL – this is a piece of plastic that has people’s name on it, it’s with them every day.

With this single, universal scientific fact, we could turn the billions of credit cards in people’s pockets into a personal and confronting reminder of the urgent need for change.

1. Make plastic personal: It had to be shifted from an abstract planetary problem, into a relatable human issue.

2. Make plastic unforgettable: If plastic’s damage could be easily put from people’s thoughts, we had to create reminders in everyday life.

3. Make plastic actionable: All activity pushed people to an interactive campaign website. Based on diet and geography, people could take a test to see how much plastic they were likely ingesting a week.

After feeling the personal impact of plastic pollution, people were compelled to sign the global petition.

Plastic Diet was announced to the world’s media via WWF’s Singapore HQ.

A campaign toolkit in 11 of the world’s most popular languages enabled WWF’s 40+ offices to generate their own media placements and an 'always on' in-house studio helped repurpose assets for the WWF offices who generated pro-bono media spaces.

Bespoke mailers containing cardboard credit cards were sent direct to 1000's of influencers in key countries

All activity pushed people to an interactive campaign site, compelling them to sign the global petition and aggregating all of the pledges

Plastic Diet gave WWF a platform to interrupt and influence political systems. Packs featuring a physical version of the campaigns’ card, along with the massive weight of the public support via the signatures, were used by WWF teams to engage politicians, influencers, civil servants and governments in conversations, meetings, summits, and conferences, from the G20 to the UN throughout 2019.

1: Attitude KPI: Reach 1.75 billion people, generate 100,000 organic posts.

Result: 5.2bn - 300% of target; 600,000 organic posts – 600% of target.

Over 400,000 pieces of media coverage were generated after 45 WWF offices activated the campaign. Every major news outlet from all seven continents covered the story. WWF has never seen earned media impact of this scale in its entire 60-year history.

2: Behaviour KPI: 1 million supporters, from 50 different countries.

Result: 2.03 million supporters, 200% of target; Pledges from 181 countries, 320% of target.

3: Action KPI: Public commitment of 97 governments by the end of 2020.

Result: 131 governments have publicly called for an agreement on plastic or agreed to consider it – 135% of target.

Plastic Diet became WWF’s largest and fastest growing single public action in its’ 60-year history.

For 60 years, WWF has worked to help people and nature thrive.

At every level, they collaborate with people around the world to develop and deliver innovative solutions that protect communities, wildlife, and the places in which they live.

Today, human activities put more pressure on nature than ever before, but it’s also people who have the power to change this trajectory. Plastic is a threat to all of us, to all nature, only together can we address the greatest threats to life on this planet and protect the natural resources that sustain and inspire us.