Overview

This advertising concept was created for Liquid Death and focused on plastic pollution in the ocean.

I developed a series of posters using familiar characters from Finding Nemo and other recognisable ocean animation imagery to communicate what pollution is doing to marine environments.

The campaign was then mocked up in a real-world transport advertising setting.

Problem

Ocean pollution is already used in a lot of environmental advertising.

Images of beaches covered in plastic or injured wildlife are powerful, but they are also very familiar.

I wanted to find a way to make the issue feel upsetting and recognisable without relying entirely on graphic imagery.

Solution

I used characters that audiences already connect with childhood, innocence and the ocean.

Placing those familiar characters inside polluted environments creates a deliberate contrast. If someone already feels nostalgic about the character, seeing them surrounded by rubbish makes the message hit a bit harder.

Lines such as “Ban Plastic, Save the Sea” and “Ditch the Plastic, Save Our Seas” keep the message direct rather than competing with the imagery.

Reflection

This project taught me a lot about the emotional side of advertising.

The strongest part was not necessarily the amount of information in the posters, but how quickly someone could recognise the character, understand the changed context and connect it back to the issue.

For a real commercial campaign, the existing characters would obviously require licensing. If I developed the idea further on my own, I would create an original group of marine characters that could create a similar emotional response without relying on existing intellectual property.