The Campaign Blocking Brands' Greenwashing Ads During Global Climate Summit COP26

While walking through Westminster underground in early Autumn 2020, Jake Dubbins, the managing director of Media Bounty—the London-based independent ethical creative and media agency—noticed a number of adverts he hadn’t seen anywhere else for brands such as BP, defense electronics company BAE Systems and some others. From this, a campaign idea was born that would target the delegates of the environmental summit. He saw it as being one of the last opportunities to reverse the climate crisis and prevent brands from running "greenwashing" claims. “Huh. I wonder why that is,” Dubbins thought to himself of the campaigns that seemed to be unique to this location. It was long before his present surroundings dawned on him. With the British Parliament, Big Ben and the House of Lords situated nearby, this was clearly an area where big brands tried to get their messages across to law and policy-makers using good old-fashioned advertising. Two other posters from the outdoor campaign. “You just know that there's going to be a lot of corporates and fossil fuel companies that will probably want to do exactly the same as they do around Westminster,” he theorizes to Adweek with just over a week until the summit begins. Discussing it with his partners in the business they thought “Should we try and get as much space as we can?” Backing the campaign With the backing of charity the Quadrature Climate Foundation and 40 other eco-organizations, funds were raised to hire advertising agency Iris following a pitch to create an ad campaign that would take up the space coveted by major brands during the summit. With three months to go, Iris set about creating work that would highlight the urgency and seriousness of the climate emergency, ultimately developing “The World is Looking To You COP26” to highlight the need for wholesale changes to the global response. “We build on Jake’s insight which is that COP26 is this bubble and as much as it is the center of climate concern right now, it is also very detached from the rest of the world. A lot of conversation surrounding delegates is around bits of text… it all becomes very theoretical. We wanted to cut through that theory and make real the issue within the corridors of COP,” outlines Ben Essen, chief strategy officer for Iris. If they don't make the right decisions, then we're all in a lot of trouble. The outcome is a campaign that focuses on people using photographs of real people talking directly through the poster itself to deliver messages such as “Steady the ship, or watch it sink?”. Some also include a QR Code that takes people to a microsite that tells the climate story behind the campaign imagery and how extreme weather from climate change is impacting each person’s life. “One of the things that was important to us to convey was the present reality. A lot of the photographs being taken included people suffering from drought, from fires and from all forms of climate pollution or climate disaster,” continues Essen who sourced news photographers who were already capturing images of the climate crisis for the project. He also explained that the copy was written to add a sense of “jeopardy” to try and convince delegates not to prolong any action due to the urgency of the climate crisis and the need for tough decisions to be taken in order to drive positive change. The OOH campaign will run across key outdoor sites in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London, including Westminster where the idea originated, from Monday Oct. 15 with COP26 set to run from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12. Dubbins says he wants the campaign to be part of the “mood music backdrop” around the conference but also to add pressure and set a reminder that action has to be taken. “If they don't make the right decisions, then we're all in a lot of trouble. Now, that's not to overplay the actual role of what we've done, that's a small contributory factor. The more noise from everywhere, the more likely there'll be to make the right decision,” Dubbins adds. Advertising to Save the Earth: the Campaigns of COP26