Background

Entering its fifth year in 2011, Earth Hour needed a fresh hook to maintain public participation in the famed ‘lights out’ event.

It had served its purpose to raise global awareness about the need for action on climate change and now event organiser WWF wanted to use it as a vehicle to communicate the need for people to ‘Go Beyond The Hour’ and act sustainably on an ongoing basis.

This derived from the conservation organisation’s 2011 goal to tie Earth Hour closer to its parent brand, WWF.

Access Public Relations was brought on board to advise on the strategy to raise awareness of WWF’s ownership of Earth Hour, and actively promote messages around the need for Earth Hour participants to do more in their everyday lives to benefit the environment.

Results

Access PR’s media campaign resulted in 4,300 media hits, an 8% increase in media awareness of WWF as Earth Hour’s organiser, and public Earth Hour awareness was above 90%.

Just under half of participants were aware of the need to do more beyond turning off lights – a solid result in line with the main campaign message ‘Go Beyond The Hour.’