Knowing this would likely be the final Planet Earth series, the BBC wanted to create a legacy that had a positive environmental impact.

When facing global issues such as climate change, research conducted by BBC Sustainability showed audiences can feel lost. Constant negative headlines make the problem feel insurmountable and individual action often feels superfluous.

63% of British adults claimed feelings of climate anxiety and concern. To turn anxiety into action we set out to leverage the finale of Planet Earth III, making use of this large receptive audience feeling inspired by the series.

The key objective was to drive audiences to the BBC’s sustainability homepage, which already hosted articles, podcasts, videos and a wealth of information about climate change, but wasn’t receiving much traffic.

The Planet Earth series famously features Sir David Attenborough’s narration. We took this iconic element and made it our call to action. Sir David is the voice of nature, but, when facing a climate crisis, one voice alone is not enough.

Through research we found a simple way we can all help the planet, is by talking about climate change more. While this might not seem enough, conversation leading to positive change is one of the most effective things we can do. And it didn’t break BBC impartiality rules.

The idea was to re-record Sir David’s narration of the series with new and unexpected voices, from everyday people to major social media talent such as Dua Lipa, demonstrating that anyone can become a voice for nature.

Once we had audience’s attention, we direct them to the BBC website, with resources on how to use your voice to help the planet.

Our target audience was Planet Earth III fans, so we chose to launch the campaign immediately after the final episode, when viewers were inspired and left wanting to do something to help. Our campaign was designed for social with all TV assets and adverts designed to work vertically, with sound off and feature easy ways for our audience to join in and take part.

The call to action on all comms was ‘to find out how you can Become a Voice for Nature’ visit the BBC sustainability homepage.

The campaign launched in December 2023, with a 60 second film on broadcast TV, immediately after the final episode of Planet Earth III.

Social films on TikTok and Meta featured celebrities, including Dua Lipa, narrating Planet Earth III clips. And, for the first time ever, the public were invited to narrate Planet Earth too, adding their voices to a TikTok duet challenge.

All comms drove viewers to a bespoke sustainability page on the BBC website, which gave simple, actionable ways to use your voice to help the planet. So anyone could join Sir David Attenborough and Become a Voice for Nature.

Although this campaign was made proactively with public service sized budgets, the results and reach of our message was anything but small. Our owned channels delivered over 90% of reach and engagement and the idea helped rally famous faces to be included in our film - with 14 celebrity endorsements taking part without payment.

The campaign reached over 14 million people on social media, and 6.7 million on broadcast. Web traffic to the BBC sustainability page more than doubled after our campaign went live, with an 87% increase in traffic post campaign. For such a large media organisation with an already big online audience, this sharp increase is staggering and far surpassed our original benchmarks.