Problem:

Today in Mexico, 70% of the rivers are polluted with chemicals.

Challenge:

Help Greenpeace raise awareness on this issue.

Objectives:

Create a reaction in the public opinion to influence politicians and business corporations.

Strategy:

On World Tourism Day, we launched Toxic Tours, the first toxic travel agency.

Execution:

We invited many mexican celebrities to practice and promote our toxic activities like snorkeling in oil and dead fish fishing.

We organized educational tours to polluted rivers in Mexico for people to interact first hand with the problem.

We also sent postcards with a rotten smell - signed by the celebrities and the people affected - to congressmen and the media.

The effect of our PR Story:

The celebrities helped us produce this PR story to transform an activist protest into a social and environmental debate.

Outcome:

Total ROI equalled $1,037,660 dollars.

The campaign was front cover in Reforma newspaper, the one with the biggest audience.

The story went around the world. International media personally came to take the tour.

The campaign made its way to China, the country with the most polluted rivers in the world.

We chose World Tourism Day to launch the campaign with a provocative spin.

We launched and promoted a toxic travel agency inviting people to discover recently polluted rivers.

Celebrities and opinion leaders joined the campaign acting as toxic tourists and promoting the toxic activities. This phase lasted two weeks.

Then we announced that Toxic Tours was a Greenpeace initiative.

That day we took our first educational tour in Santiago river, one of the most contaminated in Mexico. Celebrities and opinion leaders took the tour, met the people affected and helped us spread the message.

After the tour we sent postcards with a rotten smell to congressmen and the media, in which the celebrities and the people affected expressed their feelings on the pollution and asked for help.

We also printed big postcards in which Greenpeace volunteers collected signatures from people and supporters in different Mexican cities.

The buzz was strong enough put pressure on local and national authorities to publicly acknowledge the severity of the problem.

The campaign reach the front cover of Reforma newspaper on 18 October 20th.

International media came to take the toxic tours and spread the message in other countries.

The campaign reached National television in China (CCTV), the country with the most polluted rivers.

Return on investment reached $1,037,660

Total impacts: 51,352,000

Overall impressions: 10,586,028

Visits to the website in a month: 175,420

National and international articles: 216