Changing the Scenario

Greenpeace France’s “Changing the Scenario” campaign seeks to communicate an urgent call for radical environmental change by presenting critical climate issues through a lens of dark humor and genre-inspired storytelling. The campaign’s core proposition lies in offering a message of hope grounded in the necessity to alter the current destructive trajectory—specifically addressing deforestation, plastic pollution, and fossil fuel dependency—as immediate threats that demand collective action to preserve the future. This promise focuses on engaging audiences not through fear alone but by using absurd, yet realistic scenarios to highlight the severity and absurdity of these crises. Strategically, the campaign targets a digitally active and socially conscious audience, leveraging three short films directed by Alexandre Courtès that parody well-known genre tropes to draw attention and provoke reflection. The use of humor functions as a creative device to lower resistance and increase shareability, making complex and often overwhelming environmental issues more accessible and relatable. The insights driving this approach acknowledge the audience’s potential fatigue with traditional doom-and-gloom activism, instead inviting them to rethink their perceptions and behaviors through original, visually striking narratives. By exclusively distributing the films via social media, digital, and TV replay, Greenpeace aims to reach new demographics, including younger viewers familiar with genre conventions and online content consumption patterns. The campaign’s integrated use of VFX and parody emphasizes the surreal and unacceptable reality of ongoing environmental destruction, reinforcing Greenpeace’s role as an advocate for systemic change in agriculture, plastic production, and fossil fuel reliance. Overall, the strategy blends creative innovation with targeted messaging to mobilize public interest and support for urgent environmental reforms.

FORMAT#12 PARODY OR BORROWED FORMAT — Uses or parodies pop culture formats like films, shows, or genres. This campaign fits Format#12 because the narrative and execution are explicitly described as a set of “parody-like” short films inspired by specific cinema genres, using filmic conventions to deliver environmental messages. The creative approach involves borrowing storytelling styles, exaggerating scenarios with humor and genre tropes, and relying on a visual language familiar from pop-culture films rather than straightforward advocacy or literal demonstration. This borrowed cinematic styling seeks to entertain, provoke, and deliver Greenpeace’s call to “change the scenario” by placing real-world crises inside exaggerated, genre-based movielike scenarios. ADVERTISING FORMATS EXPLAINED: https://www.clapboard.com/blog/branding-and-advertising/brand-strategy/12-advertising-creative-formats