When we discovered that the gold mine project Montagne d’Or would involve the use of 57,000 tons of explosives, 46,500 tons of cyanide, 195 million liters of fuel to destroy 1,513 hectares of forests i.e. the equivalent of 2,161 football fields, endangering 2,000 species, we found an original way to influence public opinion and the French Président Emmanuel Macron to say “STOP” to the project. By comparing the size of the gold mine with football fields we wanted to help people realize how large the gold mine would be, and make the topic more “mainstream”, using the popularity of football, and illustrating how disastrous the Montagne d’Or project would be on our environment.

We identified and partnered with Ibrahim Cissé, a top talent representing the future of football and created a campaign to show how this project could harm our future. We created his Instagram account, followed thousands of football fans and journalists and then used this Instagram account to reveal the campaign to his followers. WWF France then followed up and revealed the film on their own social networks, and the news got picked up by ecological media outlets, marketing outlets but also French media Topito for example (equivalent to BuzzFeed). It was all about helping people realize how large the gold mine would be, using the popularity of football, and illustrating how disastrous the Montagne d’Or project would be on our environment. And mostly encouraging people to share the film on social media and to reach out to the French Président Emmanuel Macron to say #StopMontagnedOr

With no media budget, the campaign generated, within 5 days after launch:

Over 600,000 organic views across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube

A total reach of 32 million, including opinion and political leaders

Thousands of people calling out Emmanuel Macron to say “STOP” to Montagne d’Or

An organic Trending Topic on Twitter France on the day of the launch

More than 11,000 signatures in 5 days (versus an average of 10 000 signatures per month usually on the WWF France website)

International press coverage from France to the US, from Africa to China, from Germany to Australia in environment, sports and News press titles (Slate, BFM TV, The Ecologist, The Drum…)