EURYTHENES PLASTICUS

Integrated Eurobest Award

Case Film

Presentation Image

TitleEURYTHENES PLASTICUS
BrandWWF GERMANY
Product/ServiceTHE NEW SPECIES EURYTHENES PLASTICUS
Entrant BBDO Düsseldorf, GERMANY
Idea Creation BBDO Düsseldorf, GERMANY
Media Placement HEARTS & SCIENCE Düsseldorf, GERMANY
PR WILDSTYLE NETWORK Dresden, GERMANY
Production SEHSUCHT Hamburg, GERMANY
Post Production CRAFTWORK Düsseldorf, GERMANY
Additional Company INTERMATE MEDIA Berlin, GERMANY
Additional Company 2 FACEBOOK GERMANY Hamburg, GERMANY
Additional Company 3 OMG FUSE Düsseldorf, GERMANY
Credits
Name Company Position
Till Diestel BBDO Group Germany GmbH Chief Creative Officer
Kristoffer Heilemann BBDO Düsseldorf GmbH Creative Managing Director
Andy Wyeth BBDO Düsseldorf GmbH Executive Creative Director
Bernd Rose BBDO Düsseldorf GmbH Art Director
Marco Serra BBDO Düsseldorf GmbH Art Director
Rosario Brancato BBDO Düsseldorf GmbH Art Director
Christian Korntheuer BBDO Düsseldorf GmbH Copywriter
Marcos Alves BBDO Düsseldorf GmbH Copywriter
Kat Wyeth BBDO Düsseldorf GmbH Production Director
Martin Böing-Messing BBDO Düsseldorf GmbH Creative Technologist
Benjamin Pleissner BBDO Düsseldorf GmbH European Planning Director
Kyle Duckitt BBDO Düsseldorf GmbH Strategic Planner
Steffen Gentis BBDO Group Germany GmbH Chief Production Officer
Hans-Christoph Schultheiss Sehsucht GmbH Managing Director
Stephanie Hülsmann Sehsucht GmbH Producer
Alex Komlew Alex Komlew Music/Sound Design/Composer
- - Studio Funk GmbH & Co. KG Audio Production House
Arne Schultze Studio Funk GmbH & Co. KG Sound Engineer
Dr. Alan Jamieson Newcastle University Scientist / Voice-over
Johanna Weston Newcastle University Scientist
Niklas Lemburg CraftWork - a brand of ad agencyservices GmbH Digital Media Designer
Alexander Link CraftWork - a brand of ad agencyservices GmbH Digital Media Designer
Juhn Kim CraftWork - a brand of ad agencyservices GmbH Editor
- - pretty on point Retoucher

Why is this work relevant for Integrated?

Eurythenes plasticus is a multichannel campaign with the new species at the very centre of all our communication. The campaign was led with a PR stunt where the new contaminated species was named after the plastic that was found inside its body and officially entered into our planets taxonomic record. Closely following the media frenzy that resulted, we rolled out a cross-platform campaign (Paid social, OOH, Digital OOH, cinema and permanent museum exhibitions) that led people to a campaign landing page to sign a petition calling for a legally binding UN agreement to put an end to marine plastic pollution.

Background

Germans are some of the best sorters of rubbish in the world, but well under 30% of our plastic is recycled. Rather than dealing with our own trash, Germany is the third biggest exporter of plastic waste (behind the USA and Japan) to countries in South East Asia. Because of less stringent regulations in these countries, this trash often ends up at landfill where it’s blown around in the wind, into rivers and ultimately into our oceans. Once in the ocean, the plastic gradually breaks down into microplastics and slowly falls to the sea floor where it can take up to 400 years to fully decompose. Ocean plastic is an important ongoing topic for the WWF. We were given the challenge to find a new spin on a problem that has been desensitized over time that could generate widespread attention and action with a very modest budget.

Describe the creative idea

When you find a new species you get to give it a name. To make an environmental statement against ocean plastic, we named a new deep-sea species after the plastic that was found inside its body - Eurythenes plasticus. This new species has been entered into the permanent taxonomic record as living proof that we’re impacting parts of the world we are still discovering. Following the publication of the scientific manuscript and the worldwide press that resulted, we launched a multi-channel campaign collecting petition signatures calling for a legally binding UN agreement to put an end to marine plastic pollution.

Describe the strategy

We needed to find a way to get the attention of a desensitized audience to further highlight the ocean plastic problem for our client the WWF. Through research, we found out that deep-sea species were being found with plastic contamination already in their bodies. One such study showed that 72% of the sampled deep-sea crustaceans contained plastic contamination. This insight created an interesting strategic opportunity to show the problem goes far deeper than previously imagined. Furthermore, if we could collaborate with deep-sea scientists to find a new species that had also been contaminated by plastic, we could name it after that very contamination and use the new species as a vehicle for environmental activism. We knew if we could use science to influence the taxonomic record of our planet, we could create a far more convincing and lasting educational impact on our audience than a conventional ad campaign.

Describe the execution

This idea is the culmination of over one and a half years of collaboration together with world renowned marine ecologist Dr Alan Jamieson from Newcastle University. The campaign launched on 05.03.20 with the official publication of the scientific manuscript, creating history and making Eurythenes plasticus officially part of our planet’s taxonomic record. Within hours, a worldwide conversation had ignited over the extent of the plastic pollution in our oceans in over forty countries without any media spend. Following the publication of the new species, we rolled out a cross-platform campaign that encouraged people to sign a petition asking for a legally binding global UN agreement to put an end to marine plastic pollution. This cross over of advertising and science enabled us to eternalize the idea by partnering with museums in Germany and also internationally – including the Smithsonian – to permanently display the new species as an educative awakening.

List the results

Launched during the rise of COVID-19, Eurythenes plasticus still made a lasting and global impact. •The new species and the environmental topic was discussed across all major German media outlets and even generated global coverage in over 40 countries. In just 48 hours, Eurythenes plasticus achieved 1.4 billion earned media impressions (for $0 spend). •The media frenzy is estimated to have generated €12 million in earned media value and thanks to the social discussion, over 93 counties were impacted. •The permanent museum exhibitions have had over 410,000 combined visitors to date and new partnerships requests continue to be supported. •Due to massive interest from schools to integrate the subject into the curriculum, we developed together with the scientists the website plasticus.school as an international educational resource that has thousands of downloads to date. •Eurythenes plasticus received a Guinness World Record as the first new species contaminated by plastic.