Title	THE FIRST SHOE MADE FROM RECYCLED GUM
Brand	AMSTERDAM METROPOLITAN AREA / I AMSTERDAM
Product/Service	GUMSHOE
Category	B04. Business Citizenship / Corporate Responsibility & Environmental
Entrant	PUBLICIS Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Idea Creation	PUBLICIS Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS

Name	Company	Position
Jonathan van Loon	Publicis Amsterdam	Art Director
Daniel Ashkol	Publicis Amsterdam	Copywriter
Mischa Schreuder	Publicis Amsterdam	Creative Director
Ramon Stalenhoef	Publicis Amsterdam	Creative Director
Dave Fransen	Publicis Amsterdam	Designer / Photographer
Manon van Otegem	Publicis Amsterdam	Account Director
Garezi Septara & Shaquille Gunther	Explicit Wear	Shoe designers
Pieter Wolter	Good Sounds	Music & Sound Supervisor
Jurriaan Balhuizen	Good Sounds	Composer
Pauline van Die	MSL Group	Account Director
Bob Bruinenberg	MSL Group	PR & Creative Advisor

Why is this work relevant for PR?

Gumshoe is all about creating awareness about the gum litter problem Amsterdam is having and we wanted the whole country to know. In the current advertising & media climate, we needed a highly PR-able idea to achieve this. Gumshoe is unexpected, visually pleasing and very shareable. By forming partnerships with local governments and organizations, Gumshoe became even more credible. Starting with local press, the national media soon followed, which gave us a platform to get global coverage. We got a massive international reach and our message across the millennial target audience.

Background

Every year 1.5 million kilos of chewing gum finds its way on to the streets of the Netherlands. Cleaning the gum costs Dutch municipalities millions of euros. It takes 20 to 25 years before chewing gum is completely gone and many animals suffocate in the waste. City marketing organisation I amsterdam wanted to create awareness about the gum litter problem amongst gum users.

Describe the creative idea

We discovered gum is made from a synthetic rubber. What makes it a suitable material to manufacture new products. So, we collected gum from all over Amsterdam and turned this useless waste into something useful. We created a product people actually want from something no one cares about: The first shoe ever made from recycled chewing gum.

Describe the strategy

With this unique campaign, we wanted to reach chewing gum users. Youngsters to be specific. Traditional campaigns that used to run about littering didn’t achieve their goals, and first and foremost didn’t reach the target audience. But how do we reach them? We didn’t want to point fingers and decided to approach them with something they already love: sneakers. In addition to increasing awareness, this will also create sympathy and genuine motivation to solve the chewing gum problem together. By combining their interest with the problem and presenting a visually pleasing and very shareable item, we let the mouth-to-mouth communication, PR and social media do the rest.

Describe the execution

The first step was to seed Gumshoe on a local level: Amsterdam-based media. We gave Metro Amsterdam the scoop and quickly other local media covered the news. Local politicians and stakeholders soon followed. The second step was to leverage this local news and contact national media. We’ve contacted the biggest newspapers and broadcasters and distributed a press release to become more visible on a national scale. This generated an enormous buzz on social media and online, which gave us a platform to seed in on a global level. With success. From the Netherlands to Brazil and from China to the US people heard about Gumshoe. Renowned websites even shared case movies made from the existing footage. Within the first days our website got flooded with pre-orders.

List the results

Tier 1: Reach in free publicity: • Dutch media: 27.078.270 unique persons We can proudly say we’ve successfully reached the majority of the Dutch public with our message and Gumshoe. Our content and story was published on several big Dutch lifestyle platforms such as LINDAnieuws (the Netherlands go-to woman-focused media outlet), a couple of big daily newspapers (Metro & AD) and national television (Hart van Nederland). • International media: 600.000.000 unique persons (and still counting) Gumshoe went viral. Via The Verge and Fortune magazine in the USA, the news quickly spread to China, Russia, Brazil and other countries. The buzz on social media was huge, with T-Mobile CEO John Legere and American comedian Pee-wee Herman posting about Gumshoe. Tier 2: On social media we noticed positive comments, with people cheering the innovative and unexpected angle. The surprising element of the campaign created lots of sympathy for the issue. Besides that, it shocked people there was enough gum on the streets to create shoes from, which proves we got our message across. Tier 3: We received over a thousand pre-orders for Gumshoe and keep getting requests.