Choke

Don’t let Coke choke our oceans

Plastic pollution is one of the greatest threats facing our oceans. Up to 12 million tonnes of plastic is entering the oceans every year. This is affecting sea life – one in 3 turtles and 90% of seabirds are now estimated to have ingested plastic. Plastic is even ending up in the seafood on our plates.

Coca-Cola produces an estimated 100 billion throwaway plastic bottles every year – and billions of these will end up on beaches, in landfill and in the sea.

We’re calling on the soft drinks giant to reduce their plastic footprint and stop Coca-Cola bottles choking our oceans.

This 2017 awareness ad from Greenpeace uses the Coca-Cola branding and suggestive imagery to draw attention to the pollution of plastics that is destroying sea life around the world.

The repurposing of branding helps to elicit a double-take in looking at the Greenpeace ad, and the familiarity of the branding also provides an instant brand interest or aesthetic connection to those who are familiar with it. What I find successful about the image is that it doesn’t rely on shock tactics in order to get a message across and instead shows traces of the ongoing problem by suggesting the tail in the image belongs to a deceased dolphin – usually contextualised as fun and friendly.