Chances are, you’re wearing plastic on your body right now, whether you know it or not: The UN Environment Programme estimates that about 60% of the material used in clothing is plastic and thus derived from fossil fuels—from polyester to acrylic to nylon.
Elliott Starr, head of copy at ad agency 20something, told Marketing Brew that he had no idea about the connection between clothing and fossil fuels until he spoke with The Woolmark Company, a not-for-profit that works with Australian woolgrowers to certify Australian wool.
“The client told us that effectively, synthetic fabrics are plastics…and plastics are fossil fuels,” Starr said. “That just blew me away. I’d never kind of connected those dots. And I thought, ‘Well, if I’ve got a bit of an interest in sustainable fashion and I had never made those connections, I know that the average person definitely hasn’t done that.”
In thinking about how to visualize how much oil goes into making clothing, Starr said he wondered how many Olympic-sized pools it would fill each day. The result, which he found to be one pool every 25 minutes, was the basis for Woolmark’s “Wear Wool, Not Fossil Fuel” campaign:
We spoke with 20something, production company Park Village, and creative studio Studio Birthplace about what went into the campaign, which shows people essentially swimming in a pool full of oil.
- Time investment: According to executive producer Adam Booth, the process of creating the ad took more than a year, with the production company involved from the start. Booth said that involvement made for a more consolidated process “at every stage, because production is involved, the client has really clear visibility as to what is and isn’t possible” while the director had input into the creative vision from day one.
- Take a dip: While some of the aspects of the ad—like the pool on the side of the mountain—were special effects, the people emerging from the “oil”-filled pool were not. To get the look and consistency of the liquid right, Booth said the team “went through extensive testing,” ultimately ending up with a concoction that he said resembled the ingredient list of a McDonald’s milkshake. Starr, who decided to take a dip, said it was “really heavy on your eyes and around your nose and mouth,” summarizing it as “very uncomfortable.”
- Sensory experience: Sil van der Woerd, co-founder and creative director of Studio Birthplace, told us that sensation with the oil was something they wanted to translate off-screen. “It’s on their skin like clothes, and we all immediately have a feeling provoked about wanting to get it off your skin. It’s uncomfortable, it’s unpleasant, and that’s something that we wanted to link to synthetic fashion,” he said.
- Now in 3D: As part of the campaign distribution, 20something’s animation team, 3Dsomething, designed 3D billboards that ran in NYC and London. The billboard shows a pool filling up with oil, followed by people wearing wool. To make the billboard happen, Booth said his team was “capturing the plates and photographs needed to build that digital environment” throughout filming, adding that “nothing was left as an afterthought.”
- Distribution: The campaign ran outside in NYC, London, and Paris at the time of each city’s fashion week, per digital agency PMG. Beyond the 3D billboards, they also did flyposting and OOH visuals in places like bus stops. Online platforms utilized included Instagram and TikTok.