Frustrated by the lack of action on the climate crisis from previous COPs, and keen to ensure COP26 in Glasgow resulted in real commitments, Quadrature Climate Foundation (QCF) worked with Iris London to create a campaign that would directly target global leaders and delegates to the conference via outdoor media spaces at major airports and train stations (and also booked spaces that might have been used by corporations looking to display ‘greenwashing advertising’ during the event).

The resulting campaign features real people on the frontline of the climate crisis who have experienced the devastating effects of climate change. The commissioned images showing climate-induced incidents – from floods and fires, to droughts and famines – were all taken by acclaimed war photographers in the affected regions.

In some instances, the original artwork created was deemed to be too political and too threatening to run. The team then pivoted the creative to pass the criteria at specific sites, so the spaces wouldn’t be resold to corporate entities. For this, the images were cropped into the faces of the subjects and the team used QR codes that led viewers to immersive 360 panoramas, videos and eyewitness accounts. The censorship of the campaign was covered on Channel 4 News, which led to wider awareness of the campaign.

Agency: Iris
Executive Creative Director: Grant Hunter
Creatives: Gregory Foy, Heather Keywood-Mistry
Planner: Ben Essen
CMO: Amy Bryson
Senior Account Manager: Rhea Manuel
Account Director: Ellen Ray
Senior Integrated Producer: Hannah Wood
Digital Producer: Melody Temple
Art Buying: Jody Brown, Lu Howlett, Lisa Dickinson
Lead Designer: Oskah Manchip
Designer: Gavin Colwill Artwork
Lead: Kyle Nagle
Retouch Lead: Kevin Relf
Motion Lead: Alex Burton
Print Production Head: Guy Cain
Tech Lead: Yang Wong
Development Team: Michaela Brown, Louie Haynes, Arnas Sebeckis, Joshua Winterbottom
QA: Salema Begum