In December 2019, in a last-minute political decision, the COP25 (Conference of the Parties, also known as the Climate Change World Summit) aimed to be first run in Chile, was moved to Madrid, Spain. That was a huge communication opportunity for WWF Spain, an environmental NGO that needed to react in an unprecedented fast, intelligent, creative and efficient way.

The objective of the campaign was simple and clear: to leverage and benefit from the sudden organization of the COP25 in Madrid to make the biggest impact possible about the global warming issue at a local, national and international level, and with a simple message: an average rise of 1,5 ºC on the planet temperatures would change everything. On top of that, this message had to get across and stand out over very important sponsorship programs of big international and national companies.

The idea was to visually illustrate the consequences of global warming. And we decided to do it by showing them on some of the most famous paintings in the world. We altered some historical art masterpieces in a way that everybody could understand the effects of climate global warming. Which would be the effects of one and a half more degrees on the planet, and the consequences and changes they would produce on those pieces of art.

These were the El Prado art pieces intervened:

–The Stygian lagoon pass by Patinir (desertification).

–Felipe IV on horseback, by Velázquez (Sea level rise).

–Children playing on the beach, by Sorolla (Ocean Acidification).

–Sun visor, by Goya (Climate refugees).

The strategy was to earn global interest with a simple and straightforward message: “one and a half more degrees (on our planet) changes everything”. We partnered with El Prado Museum to recreate and manipulate the selected paintings, and created a small outdoor and digital outdoor campaign to boost coverage and impact of the communication issue. We also produced some digital kits to be delivered to all media showing the “before and after” of the art pieces altered and a making of the campaign to help them on the PR coverage.

Two days later, most social media and some of the biggest national and international media were covering the campaign and most importantly the campaign topic about the global warming initiative run by WWF and EL PRADO.

Born as a communication opportunity, this campaign had sufficient elements to engage the media and the general public on a necessary conversation about global warming.

In a very concentrated period of time, less than two weeks, the campaign content managed to engage the media in an already known but necessary conversation with different executions in a PR event at the Prado, some outdoor executions, with one clear message: one degree and a half more (on our planet) would change everything.

After a couple of days the campaign boosted to a very considerable amount of media coverage and boosted the conversation about the campaign and the issue of global warming all over the world. WWF Spain had conversations with more than 30 media in less than a week.

With a very limited budget we ended up gaining a huge media coverage, nationally and worldwide achieving more than 20 million people reach in less than one week, and more than 100 media in Spain and 50 worldwide covered the campaign. BBC, The Times, Stern, Wired, MTV, O Globo, Le Nouvel Observateur, Colossal, Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum, amongst others, would give media space to the WWF campaign and message internationally. A further analysis on earned media value gave a figure of more than 1.000.000 euros worth value on earn media.

At a local level, web visits to WWF grew 58,65% in just 10 days with web entries form countries such as México, EEUU, France, Argentina, Chile or Perú. A 50% growth on endorsements in new signatures and commitment to global warming was obtained in the campaign microsite.