Ogilvy Beijing plants a disposable forest
Ogilvy Beijing have planted an eye-catching “chopstick forest” for Greenpeace which was on display outside The Place, a popular shopping center in the heart of Beijing.
In a nation where forest resources are already overstretched (China ranks 139th worldwide in forest land per capita), the mass production and consumption of disposable wooden chopsticks – 23 billion pairs in 2009 – places a further unnecessary and heavy burden on limited forest lands.
With the “Disposable Forest‟ campaign Greenpeace aims to raise awareness of the issue and appeal to the Chinese public to reject the use of disposable chopsticks to protect and conserve China‟s deficient forest resources. Over the last several months, Ogilvy worked with Greenpeace, local artist Yinhai Xu and more than 200 volunteers from 20 Chinese universities to collect more than 80,000 pairs of used (and sanitized) disposable wooden chopsticks from restaurants and repurposed them into a forest of chopstick trees that stand approximately 5 meters tall.
Aihong Li, director of Greenpeace’s Forest Protection Program, said: “These trees should have been abundantly green and vibrant, but now they are pieced together with wasteful disposable chopsticks. Our hope is that everyone in China will join us in saying „no‟ to disposable chopsticks to protect our forests.”
Bill Chan, Executive Creative Director of O&M Advertising/Beijing, said: “We needed to show the public how these seemingly innocuous disposable chopsticks are placing a great strain on China‟s forests. So we recycled 80,000 pairs and brought them back to life as a chopstick forest. We hope this display will leave an impactful impression on people and ultimately change their behavior.”
Greenpeace staff and volunteers including Xiao Wei, lead singer of the Chinese band “The Catcher in the Rye,” tree maker artist Yinhai Xu, Ogilvy staff and students launched the Disposable Forest to the public and media at an event outside The Place on 18 December. During the event, viewers were invited to sign a board pledging their commitment to refuse to use disposable chopsticks and Greenpeace supported their efforts by giving away hundreds of pairs of eco-friendly, reusable chopsticks. The Disposable Forest will be on display at The Place in Beijing for three days. To expand its audience and impact, plans are in the works for the portable exhibit to be put on show at universities and art galleries around Beijing in the coming months.
The public is also invited to pledge their support and commitment to the cause on a mini-site. Each time a name is added to the petition a green leaf will appear on a tree online: http://act.greenpeace.org.cn/kuaizi/
Doug Schiff, Executive Creative Director of OgilvyOne/Beijing, added: “In the last few years we have worked with Greenpeace in China on several interesting pro bono campaigns to promote forest preservation and the dangers of coal use. For Ogilvy, the Greenpeace partnership gives us a great opportunity to use our communications skills for the good of the environment.”
Over the past four years, Ogilvy Beijing’s campaigns for Greenpeace have included print campaigns, TVCs, online virals, websites and direct marketing pieces.
15 Comments
It’d be a lot funnier if the chopsticks weren’t used.
10:05AM
It’s politically wrong to use unused chopsticks and it’s a wrong strategically. So, you’re in the account servicing dept?
90% of Chinese people now are using (Environmental Protection) chopsticks, not the wood processing, it is not touching insight for China.
mate, it was a joke.
i know that this campaign is not supposed to be funny.
study your english well.
DDB Shanghai has the same idea.
Everyone knows that chopsticks were made of trees, stupid idea, why did it?!
Is really sad when people use green environmental protection topic for award purposes. Just like the “Green Pedestrain Crossing” outdoor done by DDB Shanghai.
Really hope all the judges pay extra attention to all this fake public service ads.
oh~~ r u jealous or somewhat?
The Green Pedestrian Crossing was carried out in main streets of Shanghai. Key media both online and offline rapidly wrote about the campaign, Such as CCTV, SHANGHAI TV,Dongfang Daily…The Shanghai Municipal Government selected this idea for The World No Car Day campaign on September 22 nd.Mr. Shen Jun, The Deputy Mayor of Shanghai also participated in this event on that day.
Please open your eyes to see: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjI2NTc1MjA0.html
PLEASE DON’T SLANDER!
Please open your eyes to see again:
Ms. Lucy LU, Communications and Networking, China Environmental Protection Foundation commented: “As one of China’s leading environmental organizations, the China Environmental Protection Foundation needs to mobilize all social forces to do their bit for the environment. With the great help of DDB China Group’s outstanding creativity, we successfully planned and carried out the Green Pedestrian Crossing campaign. It demonstrated to the public that even an ordinary moment could be “green,” and that taking one small step can make a significant contribution to protecting the environment.”
Hey Ogilvy guys in Beijing, get back to your work ok? 😀
Please do not falsely accused others!
Building trees out of used chopsticks is kinda obvious – here’s a much better idea …
http://www.chopstickart.com/about-recycled-chopstick-i-2.html
Actually, there are 2 kinds of instant chopsticks in China. Bamboo & pulp tree. The former is environmentally ok as there is abundant source of bamboo there and bamboo is the fastest growing tree (saw that in Discovery).
On the other hand, there is an urgent awareness needed for those pulp based chopsticks.
Most cheapo restaurants/ food stalls provide those pulp based chopsticks due to much cheaper costs. Only at the biggest cities where plastic chopsticks are offered in better restaurants.
Posting from 10:51AM is inaccurate.
Here’s another chop stick idea from China.
http://news.jingchazhuangbei.com/date.asp?lb=szyw&id=144295
Most of these chop sticks are made from bamboo. Which is actually sustainable.
Its the lengths we go these days to win some award which is not.
I think some people are confusing environmentalism and nationalism here.
23 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks is a problem regardless of whether they were made from pulp trees or bamboo. That is still 23 billion chopsticks that need to be processed, which I’m sure leads to environmental damage.
Afforestation projects can have a big impact in areas that would otherwise be faced with serious erosion, like in Guangxi. They also help to prevent deadly landslides like the ones that affected China this past summer.