Green search engine, Ecosia, in partnership with Sky Media and JCDecaux, launches its first major international brand campaign in the UK and cities across Europe. The multi-channel campaign lets millions of potential users know they can turn their searches – no matter how weird – into trees.
With more than 120 million trees already funded by users’ searches globally, Ecosia expects the campaign to generate significant growth for tree planting. Aiming to build brand awareness of the tree planting search engine, Sky Media and JCDecaux UK have developed a campaign incorporating TV and OOH to reach Ecosia’s target audience of eco-conscious 18-to-34-year olds. The inspiration for the campaign stems from an award-winning bespoke brand video created by students at Germany’s Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg for a class assignment. The film consequently won a number of awards, including a Silver Screen in the prestigious Young Director Award at Cannes. Ecosia’s marketing team has since obtained a 12-month license for the video.
Hannah Wickes, CMO at Ecosia, commented: “‘Weird Search Requests’ is our first major OOH and TV campaign and we couldn’t be happier to be working with such engaged partners as JCDecaux and Sky Media. Both partners are committed to Net Zero, and have their own ambitious targets to tackle the climate crisis. Their support on this campaign means we can reach millions of new Ecosia users. Our audience is uniquely young and active and growing rapidly, with over a million users already in the UK alone, but we need our movement to grow even faster to keep pace with the climate emergency. With new users joining across Europe with this campaign, we will be able to plant millions more trees and expand our critical work of regenerating forests around the world.”
By using AdSmart for the first time, Ecosia’s ‘Weird Search Requests’ campaign will use the power of TV to target eco-conscious consumers across six UK cities. These UK locations mirror, and in certain areas expand on, the OOH campaign locations from JCDecaux UK as part of its Nurture Programme. JCDecaux UK’s billboards are printed on 100% recycled paper.
Katharine Dunlap, Head of Direct to Scale at Sky Media, commented: “We’re thrilled Ecosia has chosen Sky Media to introduce its “Weird Search Requests” campaign to TV for the first time. The power of AdSmart is highlighted in this campaign as we target specific households throughout the UK who care about the environment as much as we do and, of course, Ecosia does! We’re also excited to be working closely with JCDecaux UK where our research teams will measure the campaign’s success and impact of a collaborative omni-channel media plan.”
‘Weird Search Requests’ will roll out across more than 3,700 billboards and posters across 12 cities in Europe, and across London, Manchester and Edinburgh in the UK. The Digital Out-of-Home creative will include a mix of 6 second static and 10 second motion, and in Germany features a creative variant that uses dynamic, real-time content to display the tree counter from the Ecosia website, showing how many trees its users have planted around the world.
Joe Hills, Head of Nurture at JCDecaux UK, commented: “We are thrilled to have worked so closely with Ecosia and Sky Media on this ‘Weird Search Requests’ campaign, supporting it in multiple markets through our growing international start-up programme, Nurture. Not only are our businesses aligned from an environmental and sustainability perspective, but we all recognise the important role we play in tackling climate change. JCDecaux is well on its way to becoming a carbon neutral business, set to achieve this milestone by 2030. We are also proud to be the first Out-of-Home company to join Ad Net Zero, the UK advertising industry’s initiative to help respond to the climate crisis. Collaborative campaigns with green partners such as this further underpin our sustainability commitment, something that we know is key to the future of our cities and an integral part in showing respect for people and the environment.”
To measure the campaign’s success, Sky Media’s brand research team is working together with JCDecaux UK on a study to measure the campaign’s overall impact on brand awareness and its effectiveness across the targeted areas in the UK.
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