Environmental Campaign: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

 

The Sea Shepherd's environmental campaign has an intense, unapologetic vibe.  The way they pair gritty, raw footage from the front lines with visuals that command attention just hits different. Instead of painting themselves as quietly "environmentally friendly", SeaShepherd comes across as more of an old-school style activist, with a punk/disruptor feel. 

For example, their Catch of the Day 2050 campaign had them teamed up with a creative agency to turn old fishing nets that had been thrown into the ocean into "seafood art" which was then displayed in a mock market stall. It created a shocking, visual representation of the way garbage has affected marine life. The way the faux fish cart occupies a public space means it can capture the attention of the average passerby and quietly make the point about what the future holds if no action is taken. The artisic medium allows for the message to be sent without using any "preachy" communication or forceful styles that feel oppressive. The video is short and to-the-point, which is more likely to mean the message will still make the rounds on digital reels like instagram and youtube.

They also have produced video documentation of their hands-on activism missions. They produce dramatic drone footage of poaching ships, entangled animal rescues, and intercepting driftnets to give you front row seats showing what kinds of things are going on in the ocean. 

Operation Driftnet highlights the illegal use of driftnets for fishing, which is a practice banned since 1992. Sea Shepherd confiscated hundreds of dead marine animals including dolphins, sharks, tuna, seals, and more. 

By using real footage, shocking photos of nets and dead animals, and tracking the chase of illegal vessels, they highlight the brutality and the urgency  of the problem. 

This mix of documentary-style videos and provocative "art" displays, both of which are featured heavily on their social media channels, the campaign informs in a way that also conveys urgency and demands an emotional response. 

By modeling a "take action" approach they allow themselves to tell a story and actively portray the hero who takes action and solves a problem. This gives the message some hope for the future, despite the severity of the problem. 

While this approach relies even more on the brutal realities of a problem that some people might find too disturbing to engage with, I think both the shocking and the creative aspects of their advertising techniques provide a nice balance to their approach. There is a risk to the more gentle warning of the art display that people won't feel enough of a danger to act, but the more shocking, documentary approach is less likely to catch the attention of people already not thinking about marine conservationism.