In February 2011, the Australian government announced plans to lead the world by putting a price on carbon, thus encouraging industry to minimise emissions and do something about climate change. The challenge:Conservative politicians and industry lobby groups opposed the proposed legislation.

The objective: Counter these well-funded groups with a grass roots campaign showing that everyday and prominent Australians supported the legislation, thus convincing members of Parliament to vote Yes and ensure its passage into law.The strategy: Bring 9 environmental groups together and create a campaign that rallies the Australian public to take action. The execution:A user-empowering campaign concept that every environmental and community group in Australia could repurpose as its own.Give the campaign a high profile voice with Cate Blanchett and Michael Caton.Assemble 500 influential Australians to join them (economists, scientists, religious leaders and past political leaders).Hold rallies simultaneously across the country, with over 50,000 people attending.Planting thousands of people’s messages on the lawn of Parliament House.The Outcome:Say Yes became the national voice for the movement, dominating the news for 3 days upon its launch and featuring in national and international media multiple times throughout the campaign.

Our collateral was adopted by the Prime Minister as a show of public support and, ultimately, the carbon tax was passed into legislation.

Two words: Say Yes. Easy to remember, positive and good for ‘gluing’ everything together.

Cate Blanchett, Michael Caton and 500 prominent Australians launched the idea, giving the campaign leadership.

A month later: rallies in all major capitals, change the news story from high profile to grassroots support.Mums even got their own event, marching on Parliament with their prams.We regionalised the campaign, making all the campaign materials ‘open-source’ to environmental groups to use as their own. This helped in marginal electorates where groups organised their own local media-launches and petitioned their local parliamentarian.The final media push was collecting messages from all over Australia: people completed the sentence, ‘I Say Yes Because…’The responses went into a book, which was given to key MPs and the Prime Minister as a media event, which included placing thousands of placards on the lawn of Parliament House.

- Say Yes became front-page and first-story national news for 2 days running;- Conversation centred around Cate Blanchett and fronting a campaign for a highly contentious political issue ensuring huge talkback;- Lead story for every major Australian daily/first story in every national news show, dominating the news for a week. Media Monitors estimated media value at AUS$20m+ over the first three days; - Internationally it was reported in the UK, China, Indonesia, India and the USA.- Simultaneous rallies, attracting an estimated 50,000 people. Covered on all national TV news/major newspapers;- The final media push to Parliament House. 1000’s of Say Yes placards on Parliament lawn;- Reported on multiple news channels;- Prime Minister held the book of Say Yes up in Parliament;- Total media reach is estimated beyond AUS$50mn. Facebook: 10.5m total post-views, with 207,330 video-views on YouTube;- The ultimate outcome is that the legislation was passed.