Corona Hijacks its Own Advertising to Combat Marine Plastic Pollution

Tomorrow [Friday 8 June] is World Oceans Day, and Corona is marking the occasion with a multi-faceted campaign highlighting how marine plastic pollution is destroying island paradises around the world.

With a staggering eight million metric tons of plastic waste dumped into the sea each year, the beer brand, together with its agency Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam is putting plastic into other places it doesn’t belong - such as a classic Hawaiian shirt and even its own advertising.

To kick the campaign off, Corona has hijacked its current tagline with a simple but effective addition of a question mark, changing This Is Living to This Is Living? and replaced the idyllic beach imagery the brand is known for with stark pictures of polluted paradises [below].

Londoners might also have noticed a rather unusual billboard installation on Old Street today, featuring Australian actor Chris Hemsworth surfing a giant wave of plastic. Titled Wave of Waste, the sculpture, created by artist Andy Billett and located at 288 Old Street, is made from over 10,000 individual pieces of plastic collected in the UK and clocks in at 1,200kg, representing the amount of marine plastic pollution found on the beach every two miles in the UK. Similar installations are being unveiled in Melbourne, Santiago, Bogota, Santo Domingo and Lima as part of the OOH campaign. 

“Creating this Wave of Waste has been eye opening. From cotton buds and plastic bottles to children’s dummies and plastic bags, it’s shocking to see the wide range of plastic that ends up being washed upon our shores," explains Billett. "It’s taken more than 1,000 man hours to create this sculpture, and with it being equivalent to the amount of marine plastic pollution found per two miles of beach in the UK, I really hope it helps put into perspective the problem we have at hand with plastic waste.”

 Wave of Waste installation on London's Old Street

The final strand of the campaign sees the release of a limited-edition Hawaiian shirt in collaboration with conservation organisation Parley for the Oceans, following the launch earlier this year of fundraising platform Clean Waves, which upcycles plastic pollution into fashion products to fund island protection. Available in three colours, the shirt weaves symbols of plastic pollution both into the pattern and also the fabric of the garment itself. Made from plastic collected from the open ocean, remote islands, shorelines and coastal communities, the shirts feature typical patterns of palm trees and tropical fish from a distance, but look closer and you'll spy plastic debris like toothbrushes and plastic bottles bobbing around in the waves.

You can pick up a shirt for £53 ($70) from wslstore.com/corona with all proceeds going to Parley for the Oceans.

The Paradise Shirt

“As a brand that is synonymous with the beach, we are seeing the destruction of shorelines and oceans up close,” says Felipe Ambra, global VP of Corona. “Our ads usually showcase paradise the way we assume it to be, pristine and beautiful, but today it’s increasingly hard to find a beach without plastic. Through our work with Parley, we hope to reverse this trend. This World Oceans Day, Corona wants to remind the world that we all need to protect our beaches to continue enjoying them."

For more information, visit 100IslandsProtected.com.