Greenpeace’s objective was to equal public awareness for palm oil’s destructive effects to rainforests, as the damage plastic is doing to our oceans (after its David Attenborough-narrated documentary).

Some basic building blocks were missing: people didn’t know what palm oil is or how it’s produced, and we needed them to be emotionally invested in the subject.

We made the issue relatable, creating a character representing all rainforest wildlife. Rang-tan is our lovable guide to palm oil. We told her story through a children’s rhyme in a 90 second animation, narrated by Emma Thompson.

Rang-tan for Greenpeace generated good interest, with an easily-shareable asset also helped to energise Greenpeace’s broad base of supporters and ambassadors. But the scale of the challenge meant this was just the first step. Making one plan at the beginning of our journey wasn’t appropriate, instead many incremental decisions were made along the way.

This led to a world first: an entirely recycled advert. Rang-tan was reused by Iceland supermarket, highlighting the palm oil-free own-brand products as a competitive advantage at Christmas. UK broadcast rules are very specific around “political” advertising, so (after months of negotiation) we were in a situation where we couldn’t play out on broadcast TV and then were transparent about this information.

• 70m views - the most viewed, shared and commented-on UK Christmas ad of all time.
  
  
• Launch week, Rang-tan occupied 88% of conversations about Christmas advertising.
  
  
• Thousands of news articles and over 200 broadcast news appearances.
  
  
• Driven 10,000% increase online information requests about palm oil.
  
  
• Two petitions have over a million signatures supporting the cause.
  
  
• Iceland palm oil-free Luxury Mince Pies sales are +11% YOY.
  
  
• Wilmar, 40% of the palm oil market, has agreed to step-up efforts to combat deforestation - a game-changing move for the environment, with the rest of the market
  is likely to follow. They cited public awareness driven by Greenpeace as the reason for this change.

For more information visit
www.greenpeace.org.uk