SS4C is a not-for-profit organisation created and run by youth. Naturally, they don’t have the benefit of media dollars to promote their cause. In lieu of a PR budget, we needed a fully earned idea that gained the attention of the media, giving SS4C and the climate protest an outsized share of PRE attention.

Young Australians are deeply familiar with the threat of climate crisis, which is a rising cause of anxiety and other mental health challenges among school aged children globally. We knew that the audience we needed to reach on their behalf was the mainstream Australian press who would help SS4C communicate the urgency of their cause and put pressure on politicians to act. More importantly, we wanted to ensure that the media coverage we generated helped to foster the sense of community SS4C was known for, so that young Australians would feel less alone and helpless in the fight against an issue that can feel too overwhelming to tackle. There is strength in numbers, so the more people we could help rally (and the more coverage we could earn) the stronger our support for SS4C’s mission.

In 2019 SS4C hosted a National Climate Strike, causing outrage across the country. Politicians, public figures, and the media condemned students for missing a day off school.

Instead of addressing their concerns, then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison criticised students, calling for “more learning, less activism”.

Despite the rebuke, students were emboldened by the extraordinary attention generated for the cause and SS4C became famous across Australia.

By 2022, however, the group’s momentum had all but vanished from the public arena as media coverage turned instead to the post-pandemic cost of living crisis.

Our brief was to help SS4C reinvigorate their call to action for 2023 with a communications idea that would earn an outsized share of attention, and alert Australia of the ongoing threat of the climate crisis.

The education system requires a medical certificate to explain your absence from school.

So, we created a sick note signed by a different kind of doctor. Doctors of Environmental Science – who recognise the importance of protesting for the planet.

Anyone can go online, enter their name and download their personalised certificate. When their school questions their attendance on the day of The National Climate Strike, students can present the Climate Doctors certificate as a defiant symbol of activism that demonstrates that the climate is more important than the classroom.

Students who miss school tend to be punished for their action, even if their absence is for a worthy cause. Our solution needed to not only provide a safety buffer for students but ensure that the discussion maintained its focus on the issue at hand - climate change. We gave students permission to take a sick day for a sick planet by creating a new kind of doctor’s certificate. The Climate Doctor’s Certificate looked and sounded like a regular doctor’s certificate you would get from a GP, except it was signed by prominent climate PHDs including Doctor David Karoly, councillor on the Climate Council of Australia and professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne, and Dr. Nick Abel, honorary associate professor at ANU College of Science.

Doctor’s Certificate Launch

We launched a website where students could download a personalised Doctor’s sick note so they could skip school & attend National Climate Rallies happening across the country.

PR

Doctors and SS4C leaders became spokespeople for the campaign, raising unprecedented awareness of the certificates & the rallies.

The National Climate Strike

Tens of thousands of students turned out in major cities across the country, using our Doctor’s Certificate to skip school & protest.

Mission-driven organisations are often cash-poor and under pressure to use whatever budgets they do have for program implementation. This was the case with SS4C, who were seeking an earned idea that didn’t require significant investment in generating printed materials and other forms of outreach. Our idea, a digital doctor's certificate, meant we could bypass traditional and resource-intensive promotion methods by empowering youth with a solution they could generate electronically. This was further supported by a website and content they could share easily, reaching more people (with less environmental impact) than traditional methods could.

Before students had even marched out of the classroom to make their voices heard, their sick notes were already protesting for them. In just one week, the campaign garnered an astonishing 2.1 billion impressions, over 7,000 certificate downloads, achieving widespread coverage spanning 26 countries, which amounted to $58 million in earned media value—all with $0 media spend.

For the past 5 years SS4C has rallied youth across the country around the pressing issue of climate crisis. More than a collective that organises protests, SS4C elevates the voices of youth, taking their cause from the classroom to the public arena. We were inspired by their purpose and created an initiative that would help make the rest of Australia feel the same way