Situation:

In the past 10 years, the equivalent of 42% of all of the Portuguese forest area (3.5 million acres) was burned over the summer and almost 200 people died due to wildfires. Unfortunately, by winter time, this urgent problem is forgotten by the Portuguese people, media and authorities. It then turns into a vicious cycle that leads to reactive measures, instead of preventive ones.

Brief:

More than a traditional campaign, WWF needed content that would be capable of drawing the attention of Portuguese people, media and authorities to this urgent problem. We needed to get them talking about it before the tragedies started happening again. With no media budget, we had to come up with an activation interesting enough to generate a debate around the topic before fire season.

Objectives:

-Increase awareness around wildfires before the summer.

-Make it more relatable to people living in urban centers.

-Increase donations.

We challenged a famous designer to transform burnt wood into unique items of furniture, bringing the tragedy of wildfires from distant regions to the biggest urban centers, inside Portuguese homes and art galleries

The target audience comprehended Portuguese people from 25 to 60 years old in general and authorities and journalists in specific. Our approach to deal with this delicate matter was to turn the horror of wildfires into items that people could experience and relate to in their daily lives. Through the craft of design, we were able to impact our different audiences and generate a debate around this urgent matter before the fire season.

April, 2020

-The project was promoted through a social campaign, consisting of social media posts, a web film and a website (www.pyroscollection.pt)

May, 2020

-Under the media’s attention, WWF offered one of the pieces to the Portuguese Minister of Environment, starting a conversation about a theme that is usually only brought up during the summer.

June, 2020

-An itinerant exhibition travelled art galleries all around the country, promoting the sale of the pieces to raise funds for the cause.

- As for the scale of the collection, we initially designed and produced a special series of 20 unique pieces of furniture. But we are already in contact with a big furniture brand to start producing some of the Pyros Collection models in a commercial scale.

- 2.7 million euros in earned media. The project raised awareness initially to the specialized and later to the mainstream media, appearing on prime-time TV, radio, magazines and websites all over the world.

-For the first time, wildfires were a trending topic year round, not only during the summer.

- The Portuguese Minister of the Environment himself received one of the pieces, putting the wildfires in the government agenda.

-In comparison with last year, WWF experienced a raise of more than 30% in the donations by the website.

- The Pyros Collection was such a success that WWF is implementing it in other countries.