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WWF Challenges Creatives to Make Sustainability Sexy, Mainstream

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is challenging the marketing industry to use its influence to help deliver a more sustainable future with the launch of Project Extraordinary, a global video challenge that will see creative agencies produce short films to demonstrate how sustainability can be desirable and sexy.

By Sustainable Brands | Published 8 years ago | About a 3 minute read

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is challenging the marketing industry to use its influence to help deliver a more sustainable future with the launch of Project Extraordinary, a global video challenge that will see creative agencies produce short films to demonstrate how sustainability can be desirable and sexy. The winning submission will be featured at the UN Social Good Summit and an additional three agencies will be featured at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival.

Sustainability is not often viewed as a ‘must-have’ despite ample evidence illustrating the dangerous changes currently taking place around the world, including rising temperatures, intensifying natural disasters and dwindling natural resources. There is an urgent need for everyone to rethink how we can feed, fuel and power our society differently. Project Extraordinary challenges the world’s best creative teams to do just that.

The project aims to harness creativity to give sustainability mainstream appeal and encourage one billion consumers globally to make more than 50 percent of their purchases based on sustainability as one of the top three decision triggers by 2020.

“When I worked in the advertising world, it constantly surprised and inspired me how creatives approached a problem and developed ideas to solve them. The degradation of our planet is the single-most pressing problem facing our very existence. This project is a bold idea to harness creative power globally to help build a future where people live in harmony with nature,” said Livia Esterhazy, CEO of WWF-New Zealand.

“We know what we need to do; the science is there. The challenge is to make sustainability of our planet desirable. Inspirational. Let’s get personal and real. We need to stop talking in generalities and show every consumer in every corner of the globe exactly how they can be part of the solution,” Lambertini said.

With experts estimating only one percent of the materials used to produce consumer goods are still in use six months after sale, there is an urgent need to shift consumer attitudes and make sustainability a priority choice for people everywhere. According to WWF, the feedback from creative agencies has so far been encouraging, and the organization hopes to make the initiative an annual event.

“This is a history-making opportunity for a creative agency. To go beyond the documentary format typically applied to this topic and find a sexy and relevant way to reinvent the way sustainability is pitched to global consumers is clearly no small feat. This is why we’ve opened the challenge up to the best creative minds around the world,” said Carolyn Managh, Executive Producer at WiLD Studios.