For St Patrick’s Day 2019, EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum wanted to do something meaningful, which celebrated real Irishness, in line with their existing brand campaign ‘There’s More To Us Than’.
We looked at all the stereotypes attached with St Patrick’s Day, and the negative connotations. We found that the volume of plastic waste following this one day was huge. With World Recycling Day being on the 18th of March, it felt like a natural fit to tackle the issue of stereotypes through plastic tat, showing that there was more to Ireland than fake green beards, leprechaun hats, and shamrock t-shirts.
We developed an activation in the lead up to St Patrick’s Day, to encourage people to hand over their tat to receive free entry to EPIC. People could leave their plastic tat in an 4.5 foot by 4.5 perspex box outside our museum, showing everyone who walked by exactly how much waste we collected. But in order to launch the campaign in a big way and drive visibility we created an OOH bar wrap in the centre of the busiest place in Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day, Temple Bar. This was the first glimpse anyone got of our campaign and it drove people to EPIC in the days after St. Patrick’s Day.
Results
700,000 online impressions
70% increase in website traffic
432 tat exchanges
Visitor numbers up by 58% YOY for St. Patrick’s Day period
National coverage from:
The Irish Times
The Irish Independent
Newstalk
