Approached by Greenpeace, we were consulted on how to develop a strategy through mobile devices to achieve their initial goal of obtaining 1 Million signatures, to get the United Nations to declare the Arctic as a protected area.

We thought of something instructive, unique and that offered the audience a fun experience while they contributed to the cause: a mobile game. Described as an “endless running game” Arctic Defender was created and the campaign kicked-off in June 2012.

We developed the characters, their background story and once everything was in place, we worked on the iOS version 1.0. As the game evolves it allows players to take a glance at the arctic scenario, and as each player enjoys the experience, the game creates awareness of the true situation in the Arctic by showing references of all contaminants and elements that are affecting the ecosystem's stability. As each player moves forward, the game records the amount of meters covered, and each step taken by each player is a step taken for the cause. After a few runs, the game asks each player to sign a petition and become a supporter of the cause. Each time a player signs a petition, the activity is posted on that user's Facebook account, increasing exposure and providing the campaign more visibility in social media.

In order to create more interaction between the players, we developed a landing page that accumulates all the meters ran by all players around the world, as well as having a record of all the petitions signed globally to support the cause. This site is 24x7x365 online with the game stats and keeps an up-to-date record of all the activity.

So far the global campaign has achieved over 2.7 Million petitions signed;

1% of all the supporters have become effective donors to the Greenpeace Cause;

Over 250,000 meters were covered on the first week of release;

Shell has stopped the drilling activity in the Arctic Territory.

After evaluating the results, Greenpeace has added to their 3 year roadmap the creation of iOS version 2.0 (with more stages and elements), Android and Windows Phone versions, as well as other Mobile Applications to complement the campaign, such as Greenpeace Arctic Experience that was launched in Switzerland as the first step of release in February 2013.

The creative strength is based on the way a game is used to transmit a message and generate a specific response.

The game allows each user to get immersed in the arctic scenario, and all the problems and issues that appear in the area. After playing the game, each person can actually take an action that will impact directly on the ground of the game he was playing by signing a petition that will help prevent the arctic from the threat of oil drilling, industrial fishing and military build-up.

So far the global campaign has obtained...

- 2.9m signatures.

- 1% of the supporters became effective donors.

- Over 250,000 metres were run in the first week

- The average meters run by each player was 709.75 meters

- Played in 33 countries around the world and in all continents