WWF has re-energised its public awareness building campaign, Earth Hour, by delivering the ‘Biggest Hour for Earth’.
Now in its 17th year, on 25 March 08:30 pm the Earth Hour campaign will see WWF call on individuals, communities and businesses across the world, to ‘Give an Hour for Earth’ and help bank as many ‘planet positive’ pledges as possible.
The rebrand of the campaign – developed by global creative agency EPAM Continuum – will involve implementing a new flip clock logo that symbolises both a 60 minutes countdown and the need to save the planet by 2030.
The new Biggest Hour for Earth platform will also include the debut of Hour Bank – a live count of all hours given to the planet during Earth Hour which also provides different options on how to pledge an hour for the planet in what the conservation organisation expects to be its biggest Earth Hour yet.
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“A challenge that many marketers face is how to re-energize an iconic well established global brand without negatively impacting it, while allowing maximum localisation for optimised relevance in a world where uber-local is king,” WWF senior director of brand and communications and international and global campaign director for Earth Hour, Yves Calmette, said.
“We know there’s a huge reach potential in what we call the ‘inactive middle’ when it comes to mobilising the public around Earth Hour – the vast majority of the public globally that have heard of the nature crisis and express in surveys that climate change is their number one concern – but with a huge gap between their knowledge and their active engagement. We also know that this audience responds better to more optimistic communications, and that for many ‘doom and gloom’ tactics and hardcore messages – often favoured by environmental organisations – mean most of them will simply disengage.
“This is why we’re working with the global agency EPAM Continuum to breathe new life into Earth Hour in a way that is uniquely distinctive and ownable. We want to create a first ‘entry point’ for these audiences to set them off on a nature-positive journey that is salient and meaningful to them. Whether that’s simply pledging to spend the Hour by learning more about the planet (such as reading a blog) – we want Earth Hour to embrace its full power at the top of the marketing funnel to also reach those outside of the traditional territory of the ‘already convinced’.”
“Earth Hour has come a long way since its creation by WWF Australia in 2007, and has grown to become the world’s largest grassroots movement for the environment. But as we move forward to achieve our 2030 nature goals, we too must step things up. So we’re breathing new life into Earth Hour, into our work, our ambition and into our message, creating the Biggest Hour for Earth to reflect the urgency in achieving them – and that requires mobilising more people than ever.”
