Trash Isles
LADbible & Plastic Oceans Foundation2017
Trash Isles is a 2017 PR stunt and campaign for LADbible & Plastic Oceans Foundation, created by AMV BBDO, London.
The line
The world's first country made of trash.
Why it works
A garbage patch that applied to become a country. In September 2017 the publisher LADbible and the Plastic Oceans Foundation launched a campaign asking the United Nations to recognise a France-sized mass of plastic in the North Pacific as a nation, the Trash Isles. The hook was legal as much as comic: the campaign argued that a recognised state would be covered by UN environmental commitments, obliging other countries to help clean it up. The patch got a flag, passports, stamps and banknotes in a currency called the debris; Al Gore became its first citizen, and the public signed up through a Change.org petition. D&AD's case study counts about 220,000 citizens and 50 million video views. A UN spokesperson put the chances of recognition at 'fairly nil', which was never the point. It is studied for making a remote, invisible problem feel administrable by giving it the paperwork of a nation. It won both the Design and the PR Grand Prix at Cannes in 2018.
Techniques
- Purpose and cause Asks the United Nations to recognise an ocean plastic patch as a nation, arguing that recognition would oblige other countries to help clean it up.
- Participation Invites the public to become citizens by signing a petition, turning concern about plastic into a growing population.
- Humour Gives a garbage patch the comic trappings of statehood, from passports and stamps to banknotes in a currency called the debris.
Sources · 4
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