Ken and Barbie, iconic couple being used as the main drive of a not-really-appealing environmental campaign… The problem: critical wildlife habitat and carbon-rich rainforests and peatlands are being wrecked by Indonesia's most notorious rainforest destroyer Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) despite the dire consequences for the climate, endangered animals like the Sumatran tiger, and local communities.
Yeah kinda hard to mobilise around… but!
Greenpeace found out that Mattel, the manufacturer of Barbie, is using paper packaging from Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) to wrap the world's most famous doll.
Thus Greenpeace calls on Mattel to immediately stop using APP products that causes the lost of priceless rainforest and animal habitat.
The fun and creative part of the campaign is that Greenpeace is not frontally attacking Mattel but is ''using'' Ken to denounce the outrageous Barbie’s habit in wrapping herself in destroyed rainforest!
The campaign was launched by a breaking news announcing that a rainforest scandal has just broken up one of the world's most iconic couples, as it has been revealed that Barbie, the world's most famous doll, has been wrapping herself in cheap, throw-away packaging that endangers animals and habitats in Asia. This revelation has led Barbie's longtime beau Ken to announce publicly that he "doesn't date girls who are into deforestation." The video (see below) has registered 200,000 views within a week.
After the chocking news, Ken broke up but also ''took action'' and used his Facebook page (Greenpeace official page) to call on people to ‘‘dislike’’ his ex and to send emails of protest to Mattel’s CEO.
Soon after the campaign launch, Greenpeace members performed one of their high impact direct actions at Mattel’s headquarters in California, hanging a huge banner featuring a sad-looking Ken doll and the message, “Barbie, it’s over. I don’t date girls that are into deforestation.” (see video below)
In order to keep people follow up on the campaign, Greenpeace created Ken and Barbie twitter accounts making the couple exchange tweets reinforcing Ken’s message of disappointment about Barbie scandalous habit of wrapping herself in cheap, throw-away packaging that cause the lost of rainforest and animal habitat.
After the KitKat (Netslé) campaigns, Greenpeace is showing once again it’s know-how in campaigning and is demonstrating that campaigns have more chance to succeed when based on focused and realistic objectives.
