Pukemons

Background

The aim was to run a campaign that would help parents teach their kids that dropping litter isn’t cool. The Scottish town of Leith had a number of parks that had become full of litter, some of it being babywipes. That indicated that parents were dropping litter too. Funding was provided by a participatory budgeting scheme called Leith Chooses, where locals vote for their favourite projects.

Leithers Don’t Litter got the most votes. The campaign cost just £500.

Idea

In a parody of Pokemon called ‘Pukemons’, five different posters were placed in Leith‘s playparks. Each one had a photo of a piece of litter on it and instructions on how to download the Leithers Against Litter augmented reality app. When passersby looked at each poster through their phones, a little animated monster appeared and puked on the litter. There were five different monsters to find in each playpark.

Results

Too early to measure properly but when the campaign was launched to over 100 parents and their children, many downloaded the app there and then and went hunting for Pukemons.

The story was covered on TV and in the Edinburgh Evening News, reaching a further 50,000 people.

Our Thoughts

Gerry Farrell is a much-awarded creative director, who set out to run his own consultancy a few years ago. When he was in an agency, he probably waited for briefs to turn up on his desk. Now he writes them himself because as a concerned citizen, who loves his home town, he has discovered that his talents don’t exist in a bubble.

He and his partner Zsuzsa can use their skills to actually change things for the better.

Creative people are more needed now than ever before as the world faces an overwhelming array of problems mostly caused by wanton carelessness and selfishness. People like Gerry and Zsuzsa are the future of advertising and maybe even of the planet.