EcoTree is a company that helps corporates and individuals offset their carbon emissions through planting trees. They wanted to launch a B2C offering of carbon credits to be sold to individuals, and needed a campaign that engages and educates the audience, conveys credibility and trust, and shows them the impact they can make.

Global criticism of carbon credits highlights an unavoidable fact. That carbon credits allow the middle and upper class to potentially live a guilt-free life because they can buy carbon credits, while people who can’t afford this either feel guilty or have to make real life compromises for the sake of the environment. We needed to move the conversation away from this to more positive territory.

The big question for any community initiative is how do you get people to take an action of some kind, whether that is investing money, time or relationships to support a cause?

Carbon credits are being positioned as investment opportunities to increase their attractiveness to consumers. The fine print on the EcoTree website says that investors get their ROI at the end of the life cycle of the acquired tree, with some trees living up to 80 years! The truth is that any rational consumer can see that carbon credits are not really a great investment opportunity financially. Trying to convince them otherwise loses trust and erodes our credibility.

Our creative idea was to take a humorous and honest, authentic approach by admitting that this is a bad investment if you look at it from a financial perspective instead of a humanitarian one. We grabbed their attention with the shock tactic of openly trying to sell them a BAD INVESTMENT, and then once we had their attention, reminded them that their real yield is saving the environment, making it their #BestBadInvestment ever!

Our campaign insight was that our target audience has been overwhelmed with messages about investing in the past few years: Cryptocurrencies, NFTs, Blockchain, the metaverse, GameStop. The vast majority of these will likely represent bad experiences to these people. They are sick of advertising and marketing trying to lie to them. They want authentic brand voices that speak to them in their language and don’t treat them like they’re stupid.

We used the campaign message of #BestBadInvestment to get people to own up to bad investments they made and laugh about them or share their lessons from them. By grabbing their attention through humour, we were able to explain the offering and show them their impact on the world.

Our campaign idea built on behavioral psychology insights merged with marcomms strategies to get both action and traction.

We grabbed their attention through humor, with a disruptive campaign message which went live across our social platforms with realistic-looking ads with headlines such as ‘INVEST in Italian Maple Trees and get your money back in JUST 71 years!’. Our supplementary messages explained that the tree would also absorb around 17.8 tonnes of CO2 in its lifetime, protecting the air we breathe. The posts drove them to our website and social platforms to learn more.

We developed an innovative social media campaign where people were encouraged to share the ‘bad investments’ that they don’t regret with the hashtag #BestBadInvestment on Instagram, guerilla marketing tweet replies to famous entrepreneurs on Twitter, live stream of a mock ‘bad investor advice’ on Twitch, and eco-warrior influencer champions on TikTok.