Stop The Drop
Environmental Charity
Issue 31 | June 2014
Agency
john st, Toronto
Creative Team
Executive Creative Directors Angus Tucker Stephen Jurisic Art Director Hannah Smit Copywriter Keri Zierler Producer Alisa Pellizzari Assistant Producer Madison Papple
Production Team
Videographer Josh White Nicole Dorsey Printer Flash Reproductions Editor Nicole Sison School Editing
Other Credits
Account Supervisor Ben Prout Sarah Chan Account Coordinator Sean Whelan
Date
July 2013
Background
Climate change, dredging and erosion were causing the Great Lakes to disappear before the eyes of the people who lived beside them. In 2013, Lake Huron’s water levels hit a record low.
Idea
Stop The Drop was created to provoke government action on the issue. Their first task was to galvanize the people who cared most about Lake Huron. The problem was that the lake-side community's remote location and largely unplugged lifestyle made them hard to reach with traditional media.
So a cry for help from the lake itself was created. Five thousand letters were printed using clear ink that soaked all the way through the paper; normally an imperfect technique, it perfectly created the look of water trapped on the page. Then the letters were rolled and packed into glass bottles.
These were then distributed along the shoreline of the lake.
Results
The messages in the bottles generated over 20,000 petition signatures and gave a lake without a voice a way it could be heard.
Our Thoughts
Direct mail doesn’t necessarily have to be a letter in an envelope delivered to your door. It can be a message in a bottle. That’s what makes this idea so powerful. It is so evocative of all those old stories of shipwreck and castaways, when the only hope of rescue was to write a note and set it afloat on the sea.
It is not just relevant to the problem it is trying to solve but beautifully apt.