Earth Day 2024: Best Brand Activations

Kiehl’s: High Line Public Art

Aligning with 2024’s theme ‘Planet vs. Plastics’, Kiehl’s has partnered with Canadian artist Benjamin Von Wong. Known for his environmental activist work – often taking the form of large-scale public installations focused on plastics pollution – Von Wong’s art is intended as a call to action, with the Kiehl’s partnership encouraging a switch to refillable products.

Located on New York City’s High Line, the sculptural installation is made from two tons of single-use plastic. The contorted mass features protruding mirrors with captions that read ‘Progress over Perfection’ and ‘Refill > Single-Use’, and a hidden keyhole diorama. The diorama harks back to Kiehl’s’ 19th-century apothecary origins – when refillables were the norm – with a central table labelled #DontBuyJustRefill displaying miniatures of the brand’s refillable products.

Earth Day Canada x Strava: Personal & Planetary Wellness

The Canadian iteration of Earth Day (the non-profit organisation that co-ordinates the Earth Day effort) is encouraging commuters to travel sustainably with a playful ‘Earth Day is Leg Day’ campaign (globally, Canada’s transportation sector is the second biggest emitter of carbon per capita – Statista, 2023).

Providing a template for fitness brands to encourage consumers to view journeying on foot as good for both planetary and personal health, the campaign also aims to empower audiences and lessen feelings of eco-anxiety, which can lead to apathy. See Ads & Initiatives Assuaging Eco-Anxiety in Eco Comms: Retail & Media, Services, Marketing & Messaging: Winter 2022.

The campaign, which runs across TV, billboards and social media, was created with Canadian-headquartered international creative agency Sid Lee. It features a muscular anthropomorphised earth suggesting alternatives to commuting by car, from the sensible (walking, biking, or running for the bus) to the outlandish (think horse riding and unicycling), with all non-car commutes counting as ‘leg day’.

Alongside the video, Earth Day Canada has partnered with exercise-tracking app Strava for a ‘leg day’ challenge. Participants are tasked with logging 10 days of sustainable commuting on the Strava app during April for the chance to be entered into a draw for earth-friendly prizes, such as an electric bike, a year’s free public transport or gym memberships.

For more, see Eco Comms: Autumn/Winter 2023.

LG’s 3D Endangered Animals Overlook NYC All Year Round

Using Earth Day as a launch date for year-round comms – a tactic previously employed during calendar moments such as Black History Month by brands including Nike’s Jordan sub-brand and UK outdoors brand Finisterre (see Cultural Diversity Campaigns Oct ‘21) – LG’s Earth Day campaign sees animals overlooking Times Square via 3D anamorphic billboards.

LG’s permanent Times Square billboard plays host to the campaign, the 3D effect of which is created through an illusion of depth. Images are distorted to appear three-dimensional when viewed from specific angles (a technique also used by Louis Vuitton in its partnership with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama – see The Brief for more).

The campaign, which also demonstrates LG’s technological prowess, begins with a snow leopard, but will transition throughout the year to other endangered animals, including a bald eagle, a Galapagos sea lion and a reindeer.

For more on the climate emergency, see our upcoming Macro, Solutions for the New Climate Era, publishing June 3. Also see Eco-Comms: Winter 2023.