Save Palawan

A bit of background: Last year, environmentalist Dr. Gerardo "Doc Gerry" Ortega was gunned down for his heroic stance against the exploitation and destruction of Palawan, one of the most breathtaking tropical islands on the planet. Located off the coast of the Philippines,  Palawan is a mecca for marine life. Over 11,000 square kilometers of coral reefs teeming with abundant fish and crustacean populations support a broader network of turtles, dugongs, cetaceans--all currently threatened by the government's proposed mining operation. The "Say No to Mining in Palawan" campaign was launched in his memory.


Agency: DM9JaymeSyfu, Manila, Philippines

Client: Say No to Mining in Palawan

Art Direction: I think this is a great concept. No matter what language you speak, the message is clear and heartbreaking. This is a fantastic illustration of the detrimental effects of mining. 5/5


Issues like this don't get a whole lot of press, and strong advertising can cross the barriers of language, politics and social standing. One good image can ignite the fires of action.

Sign the petition. Save Palawan.

The Sea Will Give Back To Us

Client: The Surfrider Foundation
Agency: Klem Euro RSCG, Casablanca, Morocco

Art Direction: This is kind of an awkward execution of a tired concept. I can completely sympathize with the designers, however, ocean pollution is a really overdone topic and it's hard to come up with new ways to illustrate the problem creatively. Having said that, it is the job of creatives to come up with new ways to express concepts, no matter how popular they are. We'll give it a 3/5.

Copy: "La Mer Nous La Rendra" roughly means "The Sea Will Give Back To Us", which is a very ominous tagline. Well done! 4/5.

Plastastic

Client: WWF

Agency: BBDO

Plastic and its affect on the oceans has just about been done to death, but hey, what's one more campaign? 

Art Direction: This is a pretty cool concept, and beautifully executed. It looks just like Avatar--which kind of defeats the purpose. They make plastic look magical and really attractive. Whoops.  4/5

Ye Olde Swimsuit Calendar: The Remix

Agency: Y&R
Client: Surfrider Foundation

In order to bring attention to the oil spill problem, Y&R France has brought us a seemingly tireless marketing ploy: The Swimsuit Calendar.

The catch?

"That's no moon."

What look like swimsuits are actually intricate mini oil spills. Pretty neat.

Art Direction: I'll be honest, I'm not a fan. For three reasons:

              One: The swimsuit calendar is old. Who even uses calendars anymore anyway?! Unless you're Sports Illustrated, and have a magazine, this seems silly.

              Two: This makes oil look attractive. It communicates: "Apparently oil spills are bad...but they look AWESOME here! SPILL MORE!" However, it also can communicate: "Hey--want to see them naked? Oil spills are totally blocking you right now. Clean up the ocean to see boobs." Which brings me to my next point...

             Three: As a woman, I'm pretty darn tired of seeing this used to sell things. Next?  2/5

Copy: Unless they're counting the names of the months, there isn't much here. 0/5

Try again, Y&R.

Protecting Dugongs

Agency: TBWA South Africa
Client: Endangered Wildlife Trust

You are looking at every Dugong left in African waters.

Extensive trawling and habitat destruction off the coast of the Bazaruto Archipelago are destroying seagrass meadows, the dugong's main food source. Already, 60% of the area's seagrass meadows have been depleted.

Stand up against trawling and destructive fishing techniques.


Art Direction: Unlike the previous post, this is an example of a piece driven entirely by a simple, powerful piece of copy. While the idea is very simple, it's effective and really makes you investigate further. 4/5

Copy: There's nothing quite so powerful as a simple statement of fact: especially if that fact is terrifying. This is a great example of no-frills writing. Kudos! 5/5

Whatever You Do to the World, You Do to Yourself

Agency: She Came In Through the Window, Chile
Client: Advertisers Without Borders

Art Direction: Clever concept, unusual art--visually interesting. 5/5.

Copywriting: Matches the art direction very well. Simple, to the point, and more importantly: true. On the down side, it's not very original or clever. 4/5.

Fish Are Friends, Not Food

Agency: Young & Rubicam, Frankfurt, Germany

Client: The Sharkproject

Shark finning is the practice of catching a shark, slicing off the fins while the shark is still alive, and throwing the shark back into the ocean, where it lays helpless in agonizing pain. It can take days for the shark to finally die.

This practice is driven by the demand for Shark Fin Soup, an Asian delicacy.

This practice has had a devastating affect on global shark populations—some species’ numbers have dropped as much as 90%.

The Piece:

Y&R knocked this out of the park. It’s hard to do compelling direct mail campaigns. But with this piece, you get an awesomely textured envelope, which automatically catches your eye because it’s not bills, and you’re bonding with this little envelope because it’s yours and it’s different and it’s not bills!

Then you open it: You have just finned a shark.

Bowls of sadness.

Art direction: Simply impeccable. Texture looks good, color’s great, a very attractive piece. 5/5

Copywriting: There’s not much there to judge, but it’s direct and to the point. 4/5.

Well done, Y&R!  

I’ll admit, sharks scare the living daylights out of me and I know a lot of people who wouldn’t really miss them if they went away for good—but what if they did?

Sharks are apex predators—the top of the food chain, right along with Bluefin tuna and cetaceans. What happens when you take top predators away? The ecosystem collapses.

What can you do?

Sign petitions:

Chinese legislation to ban finning

Ban all finning in the EU

Ban Sharkfin Soup in the US

"Like" StopSharkFinning on Facebook

And if you see somebody actually eating sharkfin soup, pour it on their head.

"Legal" Harborside a Crime

Agency: DeVito/Verdi
Client: Legal Harborside

Legal Harborside, a seafood restaurant in Boston, might have the worst name of all time. If you look at their menus, you'll find several threatened and irresponsibly fished species of marine life: sea scallops, bluefin tuna, and Atlantic salmon, to name a few. 

Speaking of crimes, the agency DeVito/Verdi is guilty of three: these ads.

Art Direction: This is possibly one of the worst campaigns I've ever seen, other than this guy up in Cleveland. Firstly, the idea is poor. Taking Boston landmarks and putting aprons around their necks is something third graders from the short bus would think up. Secondly, the photoshop is sloppy, the aprons look stiff and very clearly...photoshopped. How hard would it have been to actually put some aprons on the statues and take a picture?! 1/5

Copywriting: What copy? 0/5

Taking care of our oceans means taking care of the abundant life that lives there. Many of the species we like to eat are fighting fin and tail (sometimes shell) for their survival--and we're not stopping. It's important to get the word out that fish are mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore! Something as simple as eating the right kinds of seafood can make a huge difference. 

Tell "Legal" Harborside that their menu is a crime: Copy and paste this letter into their feedback.

76% of the world’s commercially fished species have been fished to or beyond the point at which their populations can sustain themselves.

Many of the species on your menu are being fished to the point of extinction, or are fished in ways that harm the oceans.

Until you feature sustainable seafood on your menu, I will not support your business, and will urge others to do the same.

Thank you.

How Advertising Can Save the World

Happy World Oceans Day!

Just in time, JWT teamed up with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) to bring you these three ads protesting whale slaughter.

"To investigate their genetic diversity,  720 Minke whales were killed last year. Minke whales now have less genetic diversity. Stop the slaughter. Help us at ifaw.org"

"To research their abundance in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, 680 whales were murdered last season. Now the Sanctuary is less abundant. Stop the slaughter. Help us at ifaw.org"

"Last year 100 Sei whales were butchered to study their eating habits. 100 Sei whales will not be eating again. Stop the slaughter. Help us at ifaw.org"

With the new season of Whale Wars and all the attention Sea Shepherd is getting, whale slaughter seems to be the “in” issue at the moment—which is fine, whatever gets people interested in marine conservation.

We’re starting a new rating system for ads here at Neptune’s Nachos (I am, after all, an advertising professional). 1 through 5 for both art direction and copywriting, feel free to agree, disagree, write a dissertation, etc.

Art Direction: While the idea is as basic as you get (not creative execution by any stretch of the imagination), the imagery is beautiful, but not enough to stop somebody walking by. The placing of the copy makes NO sense, and it looks like juvenile cursive. Put that together with the dark, textured background and it’s pretty hard to read. If the imagery barely resonates emotionally with me, chances are it won’t resonate at all with someone who’s totally ignorant of the issues facing whales today. 2/5.

Copywriting: The writing’s a little better than the direction, but not much. There’s too much information that the everyday person won’t care about—like the “Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary”. Not only will your random person not know what the HELL that is, they’re probably not going to care. That’s four words you don’t need. The language needs more power. 2/5

Thanks to shows like Mad Men, advertising has a bad reputation—many people see the industry as a greedy moneymaking machine, but that’s not true. Advertising like this is what gets people’s attention—it makes people care, jars them, wakes them up. Scientists aren’t the only ones who can save the ocean—creative people who have the power to influence the masses can really make a difference. That’s why it’s so important to put out really good ads—ads that aren’t just pretty to look at. 

We need ads that make people care.

Oil Spill Awareness

Agency: Rethink Communications, Canada
Client: Oil Spill Awareness






Posters made with environmentally friendly, water-soluble ink were placed above wild postings around Vancouver. When it rained, the ink bled onto posters below, showing how oil spills affect everyone.

Without You, Whales are Alone

Agency: Los Quiltros, Chile

Client: Cero Caza de Ballenas

Scientists in Iceland want to prove their theory: whether the world will let them exterminate whales. Commercial whale hunting has been prohibited since 1986. In August 2003, after a 14-year period of inactivity, Iceland announced that it was resuming whale hunting for "scientific purposes". From that date onwards, whale meat from these investigations has been commercialized for human consumption in Asian countries.
Without you, whales are alone.

Japanese scientists have yet to conclude their investigation: whether whale meat tastes better with soy sauce or ginger.
Commercial whale hunting has been prohibited since 1986. In 1987, Japan began to hunt them once more, claiming "scientific motives". Whale meat from investigations has been sold in restaurants all over Japan since 1987.
 Without you, whales are alone

Under a loophole in the International Whaling Committee’s (IWC) guidelines for whaling, nations are allowed to harvest whales in the pursuit of scientific study. As a result, the whaling nations of Japan and Iceland have taken this clause and run with it. These are actual photos of Japanese whalers taunting activists with signs about their “scientific” pursuits:

What’s infuriating is that they’re being perfectly legal (legal turds, but legal just the same): according to IWC guidelines.

The IWC states:

            A major area of discussion in recent years has been the issuing of permits by member states for the killing of whales for scientific purposes. The use of such permits is not new. The right to issue them is enshrined in Article VIII of the 1946 Convention. Whilst member nations must submit proposals for review, in accordance with the Convention, it is the member nation that ultimately decides whether or not to issue a permit, and this right overrides any other Commission regulations including the moratorium and sanctuaries. Article VIII also requires that the animals be utilised once the scientific data have been collected.

The IWC has pretty much put itself in a corner—and other nations that want to stop Japan are trying desperately to figure out how to put an end to it.

While most countries oppose whaling of all kinds, Iceland and Japan have been paying small, poor countries to vote for the harvesting of whales—keeping the support for scientific harvesting active. However, “Articles 65 and 120 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) establish that all countries must ‘cooperate with a view to the conservation of marine mammals and in the case of cetaceans shall in particular work through the appropriate international organizations for their conservation, management and study.’”

The IWC is definitely fighting back—but they can’t do it alone. Not many people even know that whaling still goes on. It’s up to you to spread the word and put pressure on people to do the right thing.

This Is Global Warming.

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi

Client: Greenpeace

Have You Cried Today? Let me help you...

Young & Rubicam of Paris sure know their anatomy: they can play your tear ducts and your heart strings like a concert pianist. The Surfrider Foundation and Rubicam tackle marine pollution with these gut-wrenchers:

Recycling is still really important. This still happens:

Seal strangled by a plastic ring.

And so does this:

This turtle encountered a plastic ring as an infant, and suffered permanent deformity.

People are lazy. People consume too much. Most people don't want to have two (or more, my saintly mother has four trashcans for recyclables) trashcans. Most people don't want to make an effort to stop buying plastic. 


If those pictures don't convince you, what about this-- there is a trash island in the ocean. 


An island.


Of.


Trash.


It's massive. Off the coast of the Maldives. You can see it on google earth. 

All trash, all the time.

Here's what you can do:


*You're smart! Get crafty. There are a lot of ways to minimize your plastic usage. So many things are plastic and we don't even realize. Things like toothpaste, shampoo and soap are easy to make on your own. EcoDiva has awesome advice for simplifying your life without making it harder. And you'd be surprised how good it feels--you'll strut around all week feeling like Captain Planet.


*Avoid purchasing plastic. Some things, like food, come in plastic. Or Styrofoam. Or any other kind of weird, manmade weapon of cute killing. A lot of that is surprisingly easy to avoid. Fan of juice and milk? Get the cartons (unless you're not already drinking organic milk, which you should, because non-organic milk makes you fat and if you're a woman, gives you that weird post-baby looking FUPA fat). Soda drinker? So am I. Opt for sodas that come in glass bottles--like the Mexican Coca-Cola I'm totally addicted to like cocai--wait a second...


For the love of God, recycle. Get. Your shit. Together. I promise you, it's not hard to get a separate trash bin. For you people who think it's a "waste of taxpayer's money" or "too much of a hassle", scroll back up and look at those pictures. While you're at it, go watch Finding Nemo and Planet Earth and then tell me it's a waste of money.

Because EcoDivas Keep it Real

My BFF EcoDiva pointed out a duh factor in my previous two posts.

Just how in the hell DO you eat more sustainable fish?!

Thank god for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, otherwise I'd have no idea. They've given us a groovy wallet/purse/pocket size list of sustainable fish choices. I have to whip this baby out every time I go to the store. If you see a fish on the ice but aren't sure how it was caught, don't be afraid to ask. These fish come in daily and the butcher has a lot of info.

Keep in mind that fishing methods can also be unsustainable, even if the fish is a sustainable fish. Trawling, for example, is a common method in which a boat drags a net across the ocean floor, and all manner of sea life gets caught in the nets--dolphins, turtles, etc.

Don't see any sustainable choices? Go Na'vi on their ass.

Monterey Bay also released an app for your smartphone:

https://market.android.com/details?id=org.montereybayaquarium.seafoodwatch