Moen is more than just a shower or faucet company. They are champions for all things water – not just inside the home but planet-wide. Mission Moen is the brand's pledge – and series of tangible commitments – to protect and innovate for the water of tomorrow.

This Earth Day, Moen added its latest commitment under this platform: repurposing 2,000 tons of ocean plastic to make parts for products and packaging, transforming a threat to our oceans into a sustainable resource.

Our challenge was to create a breakthrough brand activation that brought awareness to Mission Moen and motivated our audience to not only pay attention but join us in solving this global issue before it's too late.

When you own something you take better care of it. You protect it. But the ocean isn't owned by anyone. That's why our Earth's water is in such dire straits; polluted with over 50 trillion pieces of microplastic, increasing by 8 million more tons every year.

This insight came at a moment when the very concept of ownership was being redefined by the explosion of a new technology — Non-Fungible Tokens, which are unique digital artworks minted, sold and owned on cryptocurrency blockchains.

Using this breakthrough technology, we created Own the Ocean: five NFTs each representing an area of the ocean threatened by plastic pollution. We created a way for people everywhere to literally invest in the future of water by making a bid to own a piece of it. When purchased, proceeds went directly to 5 Gyres, a philanthropic research organization finding a solution to this global problem.

The buzz surrounding NFTs revolves around personal gain through digital ownership. We disrupted this platform by creating pieces of art that redefined that ownership for a charitable cause – turning self-gain into a mutually beneficial exchange.

We focused our campaign on two key subsets of Moen's audience: NFT enthusiasts and environmental advocates.

NFT enthusiasts are a new, rapidly growing community of trend-setting digital art traders with newly found cryptocurrency to spare for a good cause.

We activated on key social platforms where both the NFT and environmental conversation was already thriving, along with broader social platforms and media sites to scale reach. All touchpoints drove people to our NFT auction page, where they could learn more about Mission Moen and the ocean plastic problem, and bid on the Own the Ocean NFTs.

Our Own the Ocean activation came to life as a seven-day auction on OpenSea, featuring five virtual snapshots of the current state of our ocean. These NFTs were created by combining actual footage and real coordinates corresponding to five areas of ocean most severely threatened by plastic pollution. This execution was not only educational — it also compelled our audience to take action.

Amplified through a targeted, cross-platform media campaign, we invited users to make their bid on the future of water.

We also brought the conversation to the center of the NFT hype on Reddit, Gizmodo and OpenSea. Our auction concluded with a sponsored Clubhouse conversation featuring the top thought leaders in ocean conservation and NFT art.

As a token of our appreciation, auction winners also received a physical "Deed of Water" featuring a piece of recovered ocean plastic and the coordinates contained in their NFT.

Own the Ocean brought awareness for Mission Moen to a whole new level, while at the same time raising funds and attention for a worthy cause.

The campaign exceeded expectations, with a 1,377% increase in traffic to the Mission Moen landing page, as well as garnering over 20M+ impressions.

Following launch, Moen's social channels exploded with a 75% increase in follower growth.

We didn't just talk at our target audience, we invited them into a thought-provoking conversation, and they eagerly jumped in. The campaign drove 30M+ engagements with over 20K+ visits to our NFT auction gallery.

And most importantly, our NFTs sold for 300% more than our asking price, raising thousands of dollars for our beneficiary, the 5 Gyres Institute.