Brief: Highlight the concept of the Ecological Footprint, outline its constituents, call attention to its excessive size in the UAE and enumerate ways of reducing it.
Advertising Agency: AYA Middle East
Creative director: Kal Dreisziger
Copywriter: Kal Dreisziger
Director: Ben Falk
Producer: Phil Vanier
Production Company: Asylum Films
Post production / Animation: Asylum Films
Announcing the West Carleton Environmental Centre. It's all about reducing things.To same ad was reproduced on consecutive newspaper pages, getting smaller each time, to dramatize how the Environmental Centre would reduce waste.
“Clean energy. Green technology. And fresh thinking. Why businesses are putting down roots in Ireland.”
The television advertisements emphasise the sometimes spontaneous nature of innovation. It depicts the lines left by a piece of chalk as it sketches out an idea on a blackboard. As we watch, the chalk doodles and dashes about the board. Finally it comes to a successful conclusion, as we see a chalk representation of fireworks above a doodled map of Ireland.
Actor Stanley Townsend provides the voiceover. “Innovation. What it isn’t is something that happens step-by-predictable-step. It doesn’t always stop at the lights. Sometimes it goes backwards to go forwards. It goes up blind alleys. It zigs and it zags. It wiggles. And then… And then it lets rip. Your job is simple. Just give it the right environment. Ireland. Where innovation comes naturally”
“New thinking is not about the dollars you invest,” one ad asserts. “It’s about the people you invest in.”
“See how your business can benefit when a nation thinks laterally.” “Step by step logic will only take your business so far.”
“Facebook found a space for people who think in a certain way,” the headline of one ad proclaims. It’s called Ireland.” “Google googled the planet for the perfect location for their business. They came up with Ireland.”
“We’ve created clusters of expertise in many different technologies”. “New thinking is not about the dollars you invest”.
Mudie told the New York Times about the inspiration for the campaign coming from stencil maps of Ireland that came out as whie on black, looking as though they were drawn on a black board. That led to thoughts about the famous picture of Einstein at a blackboard, which triggered images of a group of people, trying to think of something, using a chalkboard because you can stand back and take a look at what is written. All that inspired the concept of a green board.
The TV commercials are appearing on the Bloomberg and CNBC cable channels. The print and online ads are running in business magazines and newspapers, and their related Web sites, like The Economist, Fortune, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
The Ireland campaign was developed at McConnells, Dublin, by creative director/copywriter Laurence Keogh and creative director/art director Tim Mudie. Media planning and buying in the United States are being handled by BCA Marketing Communications in New York.
In 1927 when René Lacoste chose the crocodile as his emblem, he hadn't imagined that 80 years later millions of people would bear this logo. He hadn’t imagined either that the crocodile would be threatened to disappear one day. Today, within the Save Your Logo initiative, Lacoste commits itself to…the preservation of Earth biodiversity.
The hybrid Toyota Prius has long had a reputation for being a “greener” car and wanted to promote the fact that a sun roof is available in the 3rd generation Prius which is due to launch in 2010 as well as emphasise its latest marketing theme: "Harmony between man, nature and machine." The idea is that people still want to be able to have personal vehicle to travel - they don't want to give up their cars - but they are willing to find a more sustainable way of doing so.
Prius has formed a partnership with various North American cities to provide enormous flowers in public squares. The flower sculptures, which stand at up to 18 feet high, collect solar energy through panels on the back of their petals and
the base of their stems. Each flower also has seating for up to 10 people. They offer people the chance to charge their laptops or mobile phones while sitting outside in the sun. The flowers also provided solar-powered WiFi, enabling people to surf the web at the same time. The message on the flowers read: “it’s all powered by the sun like the optional Solar Roof in the 3rd generation Prius”.
Boston bus riders are also treated to solar ventilation bus shelters in the downtown area as part of the “Harmony Installation” campaign. The special shelters feature solar panels on the roof that run fans to circulate air within the shelter. The shelters aim to imitate the Prius’s Solar Ventilation System.
The flowers are touring cities including Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles between July and October. All of the activity will be documented on Twitter and Facebook.
Fiat’s eco-drive is a clever tool allowing customers to monitor their driving skills thus cutting down on CO2 emissions. But as the recession bites it may well be that it is the money saving as much as eco-driving that entices consumers to use the tool.
A handy USB stick captures all the driving information from your journey, which can then be transferred to a computer when you get home, allowing you to review technicalities such as acceleration, deceleration and changes of gear.
Each action is given a rating based on the wastage of fuel with an overall mark out of 100 awarded according to how efficiently they have driven. Drivers are encouraged to follow practical, step by step tutorials in a bid to help them refine their driving skills, improve their score and, by doing so, help the environment.
A similar idea to Nike+ but for cars, the Fiat eco-drive recently won a Cyber Lions Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.
