INTRODUCTION

Note: Reading this case study online creates carbon emission of approximately 3.5g.

It’s true. So, here’s a question for you.

If you could directly see the carbon created by your online activity, and an opportunity to switch to a carbon neutral alternative was presented, would you consider switching internet/mobile provider?

Over 95,000 Australians did.

ONE MINUTE SUMMARY

a) This campaign celebrates the creation of the Carbon Thumbprint; a measurement of carbon emissions created by an individual’s cell-phone data usage.

b) We created this idea to drive demand for Carbon Neutral phone and internet data services from Belong, Australia’s first Carbon Neutral telco.

c) Using their mobile device, we created tools that enabled Australians to calculate their carbon thumbprint emissions created by their online activity.

d) These tools also visualised a user’s individual Carbon Thumbprint as an ominous carbon block floating above them in Augmented reality.

e) A fully integrated campaign drove concept awareness.

f) We drove direct response through digital channels that weighed the individual carbon impact of each ad.

g) We deepened the experience through our Augmented Reality app and carbon thumbprint calculator, creating a way for people to understand their carbon impact.

Fundamentally, by harnessing the power of data to offset the carbon cost of powering data, we drove not only sales, but widespread change in Australia’s telecommunications industry.

SUMMARY OF CHALLENGE

While our solution was seemed elegantly simple, it was designed to resolve a complex, multi-layered challenge. We break down the challenge components into four parts as follows:

a) We needed to make Carbon Neutrality relevant

When this campaign was in planning, carbon neutrality wasn’t on the radar as an issue. Indeed, we were in the early phases of the global pandemic. The reality is that “Carbon Neutral” hadn’t been a meaningful driver of purchase behaviour in the Australian market (in any category) since 2008, when the GFC railroaded the environment as the issue of the time. So, job number one was to make carbon neutrality relevant and interesting.

b) We needed to convince people there was a problem

It takes 10% of Australia’s energy consumption to run the internet, and in Australia energy is majority produced by burning fossil fuels. However, data consumption was not broadly understood to be a driver of carbon emissions. It wasn’t an issue that had ever been put on the public agenda. So, in addition to making carbon neutrality relevant, we needed to make it relevant in the telco context too.

c) We needed to make this issue relevant to people’s individual behaviour

As the number one differentiator between Belong and the rest of the market, we needed to then make our quite old, yet also quite new news, relevant to people, so they could see that their actions were directly creating harmful emissions.

d) We had to make switching both compelling and simple. And we had to make the individual’s newly found awareness of their emissions emotionally moving and rationally compelling enough, to drive to drive a switching moment.