We enticed the pioneer of an art form called “clean tagging” to help realize our vision. Green Works are 99% plant-based, so we had the idea to reverse out a mural of plants and trees. We chose a high-traffic, incredibly dirty location - the entrance to San Francisco's Broadway Tunnel. The 140-foot wall became the canvas for a live Green Works billboard. We enlisted the help of an award-winning documentarian, to shoot the event and create a short film. We developed a dedicated website (reversegraffitiproject.com) to house the documentary and give people more information about the event and the behind the scenes story. We debuted the documentary on YouTube for maximum exposure and seeded it in popular social and environmental blogs. News stations sent crews to cover the event. The news coverage extended around the world as far as Tokyo.

In less than one week the film became YouTube’s #1 Featured Video and received over 500,000 views. It was posted on over 230 blogs and was selected to appear in numerous short film festivals around the world. With just $55,000 we received media value of $2.1 million resulting in 7.5 million media impressions. Within six months, Green Works was #1 in the natural cleaning category.Perhaps most importantly, we turned negative conversations into influential ones: “Here’s one instance of green-washing that we’re 100% behind. The Reverse Graffiti Project imbues the guerilla tactics of street-art with an eco-friendly element, detouring the definition of graffiti by actually cutting through and cleaning up grit to leave a lasting impression… the fit between sponsor brand and project is undeniably perfect. We hope to see more forward thinking companies like Green Works take the lead in supporting innovative public art projects in the future.”