How Lil Dicky and One Earth Made Environmental Pop Culture in 2019
One Earth's Earth campaign is an animated and live-action music video released in the United States on April 18, 2019, written and performed by rapper and comedian Lil Dicky, combining pop-culture celebrity participation with an explicit environmental awareness message distributed through the Film medium.
The campaign centers on a single media asset: the official music video for the song Earth, performed by Lil Dicky, whose legal name is David Burd. Written with collaborator Benjamin Levin, the track enlists a remarkable ensemble of artists and public figures voicing animal characters to deliver an urgent but accessible message about planetary stewardship. According to adsoftheworld.com, the ensemble cast includes Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Halsey, Snoop Dogg, Kevin Hart, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran, and Leonardo DiCaprio, among others. The breadth of that roster is not incidental; it is the strategic mechanism by which One Earth moved a public interest message into mainstream entertainment consumption.
The film was produced in partnership with RYOT, the immersive media studio, and animated by Buenos Aires studio 3DAR, according to adsoftheworld.com. The dual-studio structure allowed the video to blend photorealistic creature animation with live-action performance, giving the piece a production register more consistent with a major-label music release than a traditional public service announcement. In the United States, where public interest content competes directly with commercial entertainment for audience attention, that production investment signals a deliberate strategy to reach audiences through pleasure rather than obligation. One Earth's decision to anchor the campaign to the Music and Media and Entertainment industries rather than to a conventional nonprofit communications framework reflects that same logic. The campaign was submitted to Clapboard.com approximately six years after its April 2019 release, where it holds a Clapboard Score of 89 out of 100.
One Earth identified a measurable gap in environmental communication strategy in the United States. Traditional public interest campaigns in the environmental category have historically relied on documentary formats, guilt-driven imagery, or data-heavy advocacy content — approaches that, while earnest, struggle to generate organic social distribution at scale. Earth is structured to solve that problem by operating entirely within the grammar of popular music and entertainment.
The timing of the campaign's April 2019 release in the United States was deliberate. According to Music Business Worldwide, global paid music-streaming subscriptions reached approximately 304.9 million at the end of June 2019, representing growth of around 69 million year over year. Counterpoint, as reported by MacRumors, estimated total global online music streaming subscriptions at 358 million for full-year 2019, up approximately 32 percent year over year. In the United States specifically, streaming had become the dominant mode of music consumption, meaning a music video released natively into that ecosystem could reach audiences who would never encounter a traditional environmental campaign. One Earth's decision to work within the Music industry category is therefore a market-fit decision as much as a creative one.
The competitive landscape for public interest environmental content in the United States in 2019 included established documentary platforms such as National Geographic and channels associated with organisations like the Sierra Club, which had long-standing brand recognition but limited ability to penetrate youth pop-culture conversation. The Earth campaign sidesteps that competition entirely by operating in a different attention economy. The partnership with the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, noted by philstar.com as a strategic alignment for the campaign, added credibility within the environmental advocacy community while Lil Dicky's profile and the celebrity ensemble supplied reach within the entertainment community. That dual-channel credibility is unusual in the Public Interest category and represents the campaign's core strategic originality.
Nigel Tierney and Federico Heller co-directed Earth, bringing together two production organisations with distinct specialisations. Tierney directed through RYOT, the immersive and impact media studio, while Heller directed through 3DAR, the Buenos Aires-based animation studio, according to adsoftheworld.com. That division of labour maps directly onto the film's visual architecture: RYOT's documentary and live-action sensibility grounds the piece in performance authenticity, while 3DAR's animation capability produces the photorealistic creature sequences that form the video's dominant visual register.
According to adsoftheworld.com, executive producers on the project were Scooter Braun, Mike Hertz, and Zeda Stone, with additional producers Michael Broccolo and German Heller also credited. The involvement of Scooter Braun — whose management roster includes several artists who appear in the video — connects the production infrastructure of the campaign directly to the talent relationships that made the ensemble cast possible. Head of story was Steven Gordon, with art direction credited to Ricky Baba and Patrick Moss, per adsoftheworld.com. The music itself was produced by Benny Blanco and Cashmere Cat, two of the most commercially active producers working in the United States market in 2019, according to clapboard.com. Their involvement ensured that Earth met the sonic standards of contemporary pop radio and streaming playlists rather than sounding like commissioned advocacy content.
The animation approach taken by 3DAR pursues a register of photorealism that aligns the video aesthetically with major studio animated feature work rather than with motion-graphic public service content. Each celebrity voices a specific animal, and the creature designs are rendered with enough naturalistic detail to carry emotional weight. The result is a film that functions as entertainment first and advocacy second — a sequencing that is central to its effectiveness as a public interest piece in the United States entertainment market.
No verified third-party performance data for One Earth's Earth campaign is publicly available in the sources reviewed for this analysis. Streaming view counts, certified unit sales figures, and independently audited reach metrics have not been disclosed through named public sources, and no such figures are attributed here.
What the structural evidence does support is a campaign designed for maximum organic distribution within the United States entertainment ecosystem. The ensemble cast drawn from multiple fan bases — pop, hip-hop, comedy, and film — creates a multiplier effect in social sharing that no single-artist public interest film could replicate. The choice of the Film medium, combined with a music production standard set by Benjamin Levin alongside Benny Blanco and Cashmere Cat, means the asset is format-compatible with YouTube, streaming platforms, and broadcast without adaptation cost.
The campaign's strategic partnership with the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, as documented by philstar.com, provides an institutional legitimacy layer that protects the work from dismissal as celebrity vanity activism — a risk that attaches to any public interest campaign of this scale and star density. The alignment of the Music and Public Interest industry categories within a single Film asset is structurally rare and accounts in significant part for the campaign's Clapboard Score of 89 out of 100, which reflects high marks for creative originality, cultural relevance, and strategic clarity. In the United States public interest advertising landscape of 2019, Earth occupies a category that few campaigns have managed to define before or since.
One Earth's Earth campaign is an animated music video released in the United States on April 18, 2019. Written and performed by Lil Dicky, whose legal name is David Burd, it features dozens of celebrities voicing animal characters and was produced by RYOT and 3DAR to promote environmental awareness through popular music.
Nigel Tierney and Federico Heller co-directed the Earth music video. Tierney worked through RYOT and Heller through Buenos Aires studio 3DAR, according to adsoftheworld.com. Their collaboration produced the film's combination of live-action performance and photorealistic creature animation that defines the video's visual identity.
The Earth music video features Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Halsey, Snoop Dogg, Kevin Hart, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran, and Leonardo DiCaprio, among others, according to adsoftheworld.com. Each celebrity voices an animated animal character, a casting strategy designed to maximise organic reach across multiple fan communities in the United States.
Benny Blanco and Cashmere Cat produced the music for Earth, according to clapboard.com. Benjamin Levin also contributed as a songwriter alongside Lil Dicky. The production team's commercial credibility in the United States pop market ensured the track met streaming and radio standards rather than sounding like traditional public interest content.
One Earth is the organisation behind the Earth campaign, released in the United States in April 2019. The campaign's goal was to advance environmental awareness through the Music and Public Interest industries using a celebrity-driven animated film, with the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation serving as a strategic partner, as documented by philstar.com.
The One Earth Earth campaign holds a Clapboard Score of 89 out of 100 on clapboard.com. That score reflects strong marks for creative originality, cultural relevance, and strategic clarity. The campaign's rare combination of Music industry production standards with a Public Interest message within a single Film asset distinguishes it within the United States advertising archive.
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