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The Palau Pledge

The Challenge

The Republic of Palau is a breathtakingly beautiful small-island group in the Western Pacific. In the past three years, the country has seen a massive growth in tourist numbers. The rise now means almost 160,000 guests annually enter Palau, which has a comparative population of 20,000. The Palau Legacy Project, a tourism marketing body that works alongside the government to prevent environmental degradation through long-term sustainability projects, recognised that without urgent action, it would get to the point where it was too late to protect some of the most unique parts of the country, which are already very fragile and delicate.

The challenge was to find a healthy balance between encouraging tourism without compromising the local environment and Palau’s distinctive Micronesian culture.

Palau Pledge

The Solution

The strategic approach was to ensure that enforcement and encouragement is seen as being everyone’s job. We wanted to promote an active understanding of personal responsibility towards the environment and encourage sustainable actions, setting a strong example for visitors to Palau and locals.

We created a new entry visa process whereby all arriving visitors must now sign a pledge, The Palau Pledge, stamped in their passports, signing them up to be environmental stewards. This mandatory agreement, which is dedicated to the children of Palau, is a formal promise to act in an environmentally responsible way on the island. It is the first such immigration policy in the world and required working with the government, the tourist industry, airlines and citizens. The Pledge was issued in English; Chinese (Simplified); Chinese (Traditional); Japanese; and Korean, and used across a range of communications.

The Results

1.7 billion media impressions in four weeks with thousands of media items across 30+ countries
Hundreds of global influencers and well-known organisations and businesses have signed the Pledge
Over 2 million people will have signed the Pledge within its first 10 years
Over US$450k in donations to help protect Palau
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LAUNCHING THE WORLD’S BIGGEST BATTERY: NEOEN

The Challenge

Promote global renewable energy leader Neoen’s work with Tesla and the South Australian government to fight blackouts by delivering the world’s largest lithium-ion battery and help Neoen own the conversation around renewable energy in Australia.

The Solution

  • Create an aggressive media campaign to promote Neoen as the leader in Australia’s renewable energy movement
  • Bring the story to the media by providing unique video and photography content, behind-the-scenes footage and interviews (by phone and satellite) with spokespeople
  • Develop facts and features on the battery’s impact on the local community of Jamestown—where shops were opening for the first time in a decade—and work with local tourism bodies to pitch the town as a “destination”
  • Educate the broader public—whose support was critical, given that the project was taxpayer-funded—on the importance of renewable energy for the future of Australia

The Results

More than 12,000 pieces of coverage globally across print, online and broadcast that included Neoen
Wall-to-wall coverage that reached a potential audience of more than 1 billion
More than 50 interviews with Neoen spokespeople that syndicated through the coverage
Substantial interviews with Business Insider, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and BBC Worldwide
The establishment of Neoen as one of the leading renewable energy providers in Australia
The planning of a second Neoen/Tesla battery installation
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ESTABLISHING A GLOBAL FOOTPRINT AROUND CLIMATE: GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION SUMMIT

The Challenge

We were charged with placing the Global Climate Action Summit, held in September 2018 in San Francisco, at the forefront of the global conversation on climate change.

The Solution

We focused on core public relations tactics, including daily media outreach, to increase the impact of the summit’s messages. We developed the summit’s website to act as a key portal for global audiences, providing opportunities for individuals to participate in summit activations and connect with partners, climate trailblazers and supporters in their communities. Then we acted as a web editor by creating and uploading summit, partner and affiliate content such as news, blogs and event previews. We established and monitored the summit’s social media presence, using unique hashtags to share stories of climate action, and hosted digital surges to bring the ambition, inspiration and creativity of the summit to countries around the world. We monitored and managed press accreditation requests, designed style guides, directed a sizzle reel, and developed digital communications toolkits in multiple languages.

The Results

5,000+ pieces of international, national, broadcast, print and online coverage, including on “CBS This Morning,” “CBS Sunday Morning” and “Good Morning America” and in Gizmodo, the San Francisco Chronicle, TechCrunch, Wired, Yahoo Finance, GreenBiz, Reuters, Fortune, Forbes and Politico
3.4 billion impressions in 32 countries, with 45% of coverage from a global audience
5.3 million social impressions and 285,000 social engagements
225,000-plus unique visitors to the summit website, which was visited by 191 of the world’s 195 countries
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MAKING CLIMATE CHANGE A GLOBAL DISCUSSION: UNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION

The Challenge

To succeed in changing the narrative around climate change, the UN would need to mobilize a diverse advocacy base across governments, business, religious leaders, scientists and, of course, consumers, whose opinions on the subject vary widely by geography, generation, CO2 usage, political affiliation and more. Beginning in 2013, the IPCC’s latest global assessment report on the topic spurred the United Nations Foundation into action to maximize impact among global leaders and change the narrative ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP 21).

The Solution

Confusion increases polarization. Take the U.S., where half of people ages 18 to 49 believe scientists agree that earth is warming because of human activity, but only 31 percent of those over 65 do.* (The IPCC’s report shows a clear correlation between warming and humans.) To tackle confusion, we aimed to leverage scientifically based messaging and deliver the facts in the most authoritative, clear, accessible and locally relevant way.​

The Results

Identified 150+ international scientists who were authoritative resources on the report and media trained them to help champion the science in a language people understood.
Created a global consortium of 50 Havas PR professionals in a dozen countries and set up a 24/7 media operation worldwide aimed at key audiences: governments, influencers and those wavering on the issue, garnering more than 412 million media impressions for the first wave of the report, 17.5 billion for the second wave and 7 billion for the third, with an overall sentiment of 57% positive and 40% neutral.
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