Summary

The Philippines is the 3rd largest contributor of plastic wastes in our oceans. Sightings of different sea creatures washing ashore in their coastlines are often ignored. Being a non-profit organization with limited budget, Greenpeace needed to be bolder in creating urgency on the issue of plastics pollution. Greenpeace made it an objective to target public officials who had the power to implement stronger environmental laws and, just so happens, the 2017 ASEAN summit on coastal marine protection was held in the Philippines during ocean month. Greenpeace visualized the worsening case of plastic pollution with a realistic 73-foot decomposing blue whale on the shores of one of the most polluted cities in the country. We used 160 kilos worth of plastic wastes collected from the ocean and visualized a realistic dead whale with sprawling innards from its bloated underbelly, to catch the attention of locals within the area. As we unveiled the dead whale, it immediately went viral online through a social post from one of the locals. Then when people realized it was made entirely of plastic wastes, they started talking about the issue of plastic pollution in our oceans, and joined Greenpeace’s call for the ASEAN leaders to recognize the issue. With ZERO media spend, the Dead Whale got a total of 1.5 Billion impressions in over 100 countries. Top news sites covered the news: CNN, The Telegraph, People’s Daily China, EuroNews, ADN40 Mexico, ARTE 28 France, Nation TV Thailand, Vinhlong TV Vietnam, and more. Most importantly, the issue was included in a proposal for the next ASEAN summit, just one day after the launch: “ASEAN elevates coastal, marine environment protection bid”, May 12, 2017. The campaign played a big role in putting ocean more firmly on the agenda in 2017, triggering other campaigns such as Sky Ocean Plastics https://skyoceanrescue.com/ Dead Whale positioned Greenpeace as a leader in the field as part of the #breakfreefromplastics campaign. Since the Dead Whale campaign, Greenpeace Philippines campaigns on plastics pollution got more attention, especially with the brand audit clean-up that was born out of the Dead Whale’s success. The audit named corporate giants like Nestle and Unilever as the top polluters of plastics in our oceans. This urged them to include eco-friendly and sustainable changes in their agenda starting by making their packaging 100% reusable and recyclable by 2025.