How can anyone cut through the thick fog of conversation around climate change these days? Temperatures are getting more extreme on an annual basis. Storms are getting more and more, well, “super” and politicians and pundits are still debating the root causes. And why are hurricanes always named after nice sounding people like Sandy, Katrina or Andrew? Well, we had a great idea to cut through the clutter:
Since 1954, the World Meteorological Organization has been naming extreme storms after people. But we are proposing a new naming system. One that names extreme storms caused by climate change, after the policy makers who deny climate change and obstruct climate policy. Sign the petition (and view the site) at http://www.climatenamechange.org
To make this happen, we worked with a great team of people at Furlined and roped in Ted Pauly to bring our idea to life. Chris Franklin and his team at Big Sky Edit did a fantastic job with the Edit, Graphics, SFX and more. The video let to the heart of the campaign which was a petition aimed at the WMO to change the current hurricane naming system. The site also aggregated every climate change denier sitting in Congress, allowed people to view their voting record, see some choice quotes from them around the subject and tweet at them directly. We also used Facebook connect so users could warn their friends on Facebook that shared a name with a past or future hurricane. We even had a Print/OOH campaign that used Paolo Pellegrin’s iconic photography along with disruptive headlines like – “Michele Bachmann Destroys City”, “John Boehner Ravages Coast” and so on.
We needed 25,000 signatures in 3 months. We got 50,000 in 3 days.
Since launch we’ve had:
117,000 signatures and counting
3.8M YouTube views
520,000 site visits
Google searches for climate change deniers more than doubled
While being picked up by over 80 news outlets, Esquire magazine called it the “Best. Idea. Ever.” The Guardian called it the “#1 Climate Change Campaign in History.”
This all equaled a total of 184 million earned media impressions with exactly $0 spent on media.
I think that cut through the clutter.
Watch the case study below to get the skinny on the full integrated campaign.
And here are some of the print pieces as well – a nice partnership with the great Paolo Pellegrin.
Carey Head 