Keeping the Bay Area Waterways Clean

PSA to Protect SF's Beaches

The Surfrider Foundation is a national organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the world’s oceans, coasts, and marine life. But while the organization’s goals are the same across all of the communities they serve, their initiatives often differ by regional need. For this project, we worked directly with Surfrider’s San Francisco chapter to address a specific challenge threatening the Bay Area’s beaches and waterways: cigarette butt pollution.

Surfrider SF came to us with a campaign tagline in hand—“Hold on to your butts”—which their internal team developed as a way to playfully reach smokers without shaming or pointing fingers. The goal of this campaign was to encourage these smokers to discard their cigarettes in butt cans and pocket ashtrays around the city, rather than tossing them on the ground, to prevent harmful plastics and toxins from entering local storm drains and waterways.

While the tagline and campaign goals were clear, Surfrider SF needed a creative and strategic partner to help develop a uniquely branded look and feel for the initiative, and develop a full suite of creative assets, including a PSA video, to make sure their message would be heard. 

First, we started with three creative concepts, then narrowed it down to one creative direction to produce their official PSA Video.

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