Title	THE BALLS TO SAVE THE EARTH
Brand	EARTHWATCH
Product/Service	EARTHWATCH EXPEDITIONS
Category	B08. CHARITIES, FUNDRAISING, APPEALS, NON-PROFIT ORGANISATIONS, PUBLIC HEALTH & SAFETY, PUBLIC AWARENESS
Entrant Company	ADWATCH/ISOBAR Moscow, RUSSIA
Advertising Agency	ADWATCH/ISOBAR Moscow, RUSSIA

Name	Company	Position
Roman Pavlenko	Adwatch Isobar	Executive Creative Director
Andrey Tyukavkin	Adwatch Isobar	Creative Director 1
Ivan Prokhorov	Adwatch Isobar	Art Director 1
Andrey Tyukavkin	Adwatch Isobar	Copywriter 1
Vladimir Borovikov	Adwatch Isobar	Designer 1
Alexey Firsov	Adwatch Isobar	Designer 2
Anna Yarosh	Adwatch Isobar	Director/Manager Agency) 1
Marina Tron	Adwatch Isobar	Account Director/Manager Agency) 2
Brett Rudy	Earth Watch	Client Account Director/Manager
Alexey Kalinin	Adwatch Isobar	Strategic Planner/Strategist

Results and Effectiveness

The response exceeded our expectations. With around 3000 people who visited our spots and interacted with the balls, more than 60% expressed their interest in learning more about Earthwatch expeditions and supported the project by taking a photo. But when local Moscow TV (“TV Center” channel) and leading digital portals picked up the news, our total amount of free online impressions is estimated to reach a stunning 10 000 000!

Creative Execution

We ran a series of activations on playgrounds across Moscow parks using balls painted to resemble Earth. While playing with the balls, visitors “destroyed” intentionally loose green and white (continents & ice) layers of paint, turning Earth into an apocalyptic waterworld. The message that appeared from under the continents encouraged players to take a selfie with the ball and #planeta2014 hashtag. These photos were sent to a virtual expedition on our website. There, each user photo “repaired” a hole in one of destroyed continents, thus demonstrating how participating in Earthwatch expeditions can reverse the impact that humanity has on the planet. Players got notifications in Instagram, encouraging them to check out the expedition their photo had “chosen” for them. In this cross-media challenge, we achieved an ice-breaking effect by using playful mechanics on a territory which is native to the audience and continued the communication in more efficient channel – digital.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Earthwatch is an international organization that sends everyday people to scientific expeditions around the world to study the impact that human activity has on the planet. Our brief was to stress this impact and introduce Earthwatch expeditions to Russian audience. In Russia, it is young ones who are both ecologically minded and in possession of enough wealth and freedom to travel around the world, including expeditions. That’s why we combined playful BTL mechanics with digital. We created soccer balls resembling Earth - blue base layer + green & white (land & ice) layers – and spread them across playgrounds in parks. The green and white layers of paint were intentionally made loose. As people kicked their planet, everything fell into pieces: ice caps melted, continents went underwater. A message was revealed, encouraging players to take a photo and proceed to campaign website, “Let’s go Earthwatching”, to repair the damage they inflicted.