Shakespeare was right. Something is rotten in Denmark. The sea.

Toxic waste and nitrogen emissions from agriculture have caused such massive oxygen depletion that no life is left. As in Vejle Fjord, where fish and plants suffocate to death. Biologists have cried for change in decades. But politicians are looking elsewhere or not looking at all. Nothing has happened, things stand still. Dead water.

We needed to bring the crisis to the surface and put it on the cultural agenda. So that the Danes could see it, feel it and mobilise political pressure through a movement leading up to the upcoming negotiations on the environment.

The first fjord in the world has been declared dead by biologists. But what do you do when nature dies? You give it a funeral.

On April 6th, we buried a piece of Denmark's beloved nature. Giving the Danes a chance to say their goodbyes. And the politicians a chance to take action.

It was a funeral like any other. The only thing different – and slightly weird – was the deceased; 800 liters of dead water from Vejle Fjord.

We followed the rituals, and turned them into campaign elements.

From the death notice to the gravestone. And literally everything in-between.

Only this time, the hope was that it wouldn’t be a final goodbye. By putting pressure on the politicians leading up to the negotiations on the environment, the end goal could only be to bring Vejle Fjord back to life.

The strategy was to create awareness about the dead sea and get the Danes engaged in order to put pressure on the politicians, leading up to the political negotiations on the environment.

To do so, we teamed up with a diverse group of "relatives" to amplify campaign messaging across the media landscape. Including a priest, Denmark's Sports Fishing Ass., a famous author, and politicians from the opposition.

The funeral gave us campaign assets and a language that everyone could speak and understand. From numbers and data to love and opinions. It raised questions about our agriculture, nitrogen, and nature. And even about whether the church should take greater responsibility in caring for the latter.

We followed the "recipe" for a regular funeral. From implementation to timeline and placement. It started with a death notice followed by an invitation to the funeral. Two weeks later, the funeral took place right by the shore of the deceased Vejle Fjord. Here, all the rituals of a regular funeral took place. From the obituary by a famous Danish author, Carsten Jensen, to the hymns and the gravestone. Everything was done locally, but quickly spread globally.

The funeral consisted of:

A death notice

An aquarium coffin

An obituary

Two opinion pieces

Several TV visits

Several radio features

Countless social media posts

A gravestone

Two hundred and fifty specially designed funeral beers (far too few!)

Beautiful funeral bouquets

Beautiful hymns

Beautiful remembrance words

Hopeful words

The funeral started conversations about everything from Denmark's agriculture heritage to whether the church should engage in the environmental debate. Relatives from all over Denmark, people from around the globe, politicians, and cultural personalities massively interacted with the campaign. It had a 759M social reach from people engaging in the conversation, and a 465% increase in media coverage mentioning oxygen depletion.

But most importantly, it succeeded in bringing the problem to the surface and put pressure on the parliament. Martin Lidegaard, leader of the Social Liberal Party, filled a glass with the dead fjord and promised to bring it to all negotiations moving forward.

Ultimately, The Minister of Environment, Magnus Heunicke, who had kept a very low profile finally came out and said “It’s the most environmental challenge for Denmark, I’ll put all my effort into it.” Two weeks later, the government set aside 268.000.000,00 Euro for the marine environment.