Outdoor aids the fight against plastic pollution
In what is being called a UK media-first, a new campaign has transformed three outdoor screens into Hydration Stations in a bid to tackle single-use plastic.
Monday, 03 Jun 2019 11:51 GMT
The Hydration Station in Manchester
Creative agency 23red, and environmental campaigning organisation City to Sea, have partnered to utilise Ocean’s connected outdoor screens in an innovative new campaign.
One of the winners of Ocean’s annual digital creative competition, Hydration Station has turned three full-motion screens in Manchester, Birmingham and London into stations where the public can refill their water bottles.
Prior to any interaction, the screens will play a looped animated film of a captive fish trapped inside a plastic water bottle floating in a polluted ocean.
When the water fountain below the screen is used, it triggers the release of the fish by making the plastic bottle disappear. The fish thanks the user, and swims away.
Hydration Station was launched in Manchester on The Printworks on June 1st and will arrive on The Media Eyes in Birmingham on June 5th, which also happens to be World Environmental Day, and in Canary Wharf in London on June 19th, to mark National Refill Day.
If just one in ten Brits refilled once a week, we’d stop 340 million plastic bottles a year at source”
Jo Morley, head of marketing and campaigns at City to Sea, says: “Refill is a campaign that everyone can get involved with – whether you’re an individual, small business, or international retailer.
“We know people want to help stop plastic pollution, and the Refill campaign puts the power to do just that in peoples’ hands. If just one in ten Brits refilled once a week, we’d stop 340 million plastic bottles a year at source.
“We’re excited that 23red and Ocean are bringing Refill on the road, reaching people on the go and showing them just how easy it is to find free drinking water and make single-use plastic water bottles a thing of the past.”
“Plastic pollution of our seas and waterways is an urgent problem,” adds Sean Kinmont, creative director at 23red. “By turning Ocean screens into Hydration Stations, we directly link the refill of your bottle to the removal of a plastic bottle from the seas.
“The gamified mechanic of releasing a trapped fish adds to the engagement of interacting with the large screen.”
Ocean’s head of marketing and events, Helen Haines, concludes: “This is a fun and engaging interactive campaign.
“It turns selected screens into something hugely practical to communicate an important environmental message. It is a worthy winner of Ocean’s digital creative competition.”
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