We love working for people who change the world, and this has to be one of the biggest stories of their impact yet. Last year we had the pleasure of working with our close friends at Biro Creative on a small project for Greenpeace UK. The idea for the campaign was simple – and simply brilliant.
The UK government had been planning to add a third runway to London's busy Heathrow Airport, which, while just dandy for busy global travellers, would basically wipe out all of the UK's efforts to lower their carbon emissions from the past decade or more. With airports on the continent a half hour away under-utilized, the plan looked pretty bullocks.
So Greenpeace, being Greenpeace, hatched an inventive plot. They had a supporter who owned an old pub, located on the very land to be expropriated for the runway. He agreed to sell them the deed to the pub, which Greenpeace bought along with 3 UK celebrities. Then they went public and "sold" a piece of the deeds to members of the public.
91,000 people thought that was pretty smart and now co-own their own plots of land. Now that's public pressure! (not to mention, a stunning example of the "online to on the ground" strategy that we all struggle to pull off.
The website we designed for Airplot with Biro was the centerpiece of the campaign, and besides a fetching look, had dandy features like a map of your own plot, profiles of celebrity "owners", a photo petition, and an activist toolkit including these nifty badges for plot-owners to show off their new aquisition.
Oh, and get this. To keep the pressure high, they held an open architecture contest, for ideas on a structure they could build that would "fortify" the piece of land. Watch what people decided on:
Heathrow Airplot Competion from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo.
Despite the best efforts of our clients, we don't always see such clear successes with their campaigns. Of course, many many factors and people contributed to this one, but still, it's bloddy rewarding to be involved with something with an impact this big.
Check out the Airplot! website, there's still lots to see and do. You can also watch this fun video showing how Greenpeace sealed the deal after the announcement.
Airplot: handing in the title deeds to No 10 from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo.
