
Life Without Trees
Vi Agroforestry (Vi-skogen)
Issue 31 | June 2014
Agency
MRM Stockholm
Creative Team
Art Director: Christian Soderholm Copywriter: Fredrik Sundqvist Executive Creative Director: Johan Blomstrom Account Director: Staffan Smedfors Designer: Guillaume Payen, Sara von Platen Account Manager: Catharina Fagerlund, Sofia Finnman Larsson Technical Director: Markus Johansson Developer: Johan Ardlin
Production Team
Photo, retouch and animation: Bsmart
Other Credits
Music: Hans Richter Media Agency: MEC
Date
November 2013 – January 2014
Background
During the winter 2013/14 the Swedish organization Vi Agroforestry decided to cut down the trees in Sweden's most famous parks. They did it to make people conscious of the deforestation around Lake Victoria in Africa. And to raise awareness of the relatively unknown Vi Agroforestry, an organization that supports the area through tree planting. But how do you cut down the trees, without actually cutting them down?
Idea
How do you recreate a view that doesn't exist? We often see retouched photos, but it is usually about adding elements or creating entirely new ones. These photos had to remove something substantial. And it had to look real. Or no one would care. First, the distance to the buildings on the other side of the trees were measured with laser. Then all structures were created in 3D with help from tools such as Google Earth. Finally the 3D models were "dressed" using photos of the facades, shot at close range. The dystopic and spectacular photos showed a world. Far from the otherwise vegetated Swedish parks. To bring the photos to life they were animated into films for YouTube and Facebook ending with a strong message. The campaign was also targeted and adapted locally. The ad in Stockholm showed one of the city's most known parks. And on YouTube and Facebook people were met by parks from their city. On a campaign site you could read more about the effects of deforestation. And how to support tree planting.
Results
The very first day of the campaign, Sweden's biggest newspaper Metro, published the photos in all major cities of Sweden. Soon, other newspapers, blogs, radio and social media caught on. And people started talking about the controversial photos. The films got 192 % more views on YouTube than the campaign objective. And the click-through rate (CTR) on pre-roll films was 405 % higher than the market average.