Goal is to highlight Ocean Acidification Impacts and Solutions to Policy Makers
WASHINGTON – Oceana, an international ocean conservation group, launched a new six-figure advertising campaign on December 1, designed to influence policy makers arriving in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15), December 7–18, 2009.
The advertising campaign will highlight the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 350 parts per million (ppm) to avert a mass extinction of corals and likely declines in the countless marine species that depend upon them, this century.
To protect popular food species, such as oysters and lobster, and the economies that depend upon them, we will need to reach the goal of 350 ppm. The new advertising campaign includes three executions of a design based on the message: ‘The Price of Lobster in 2050: 350 parts per million.’ It will also include two additional variations: ‘The Price of Oysters’ and ‘The Price of a Dive Vacation,’ also with the 350 parts per million theme.
The message will be delivered via posters at Copenhagen International Airport, ads on subway trains running between the airport, downtown Copenhagen and the Bella Center (the central conference location), films displayed on subway station platforms, and a jumbo board strategically located along the main highway headed toward the conference site. Advertising designs were executed by UK-based agency Propaganda.
To preview the advertisements, please visit this URL: http://na.oceana.org/en/node/3399.
“With emissions already at 385 ppm,” said Jacqueline Savitz, senior campaign director with Oceana, “we want to be clear about what is required to save an important source of food, income and recreation for the world’s population.”
The Oceana campaign will incorporate both advertising and media relations to reach policy makers and influencers before, during and after the COP 15 gathering.
Savitz explained, “Oceana’s goal is to highlight what’s at stake if we fail to achieve major carbon reductions through an agreement at Copenhagen. We hope these ads will remind policy-makers that climate change will severely alter the oceans, which will affect all of us. It’s about whether we will have healthy oceans and ocean-based economies 40 years from now – or whether we will say goodbye to treats like lobster and oysters in our lifetime.”
In addition to the ad campaign, Oceana will release new information that identifies which nations’ economies and lifestyles are most vulnerable to ocean acidification.
