Trapa Chocolates and FCB&FiRe Spain won the El Sol Grand Prix 2019 with 'An Unrepeatable Photograph?' — a palm-oil-free campaign that photographed threatened
ARCHIVEHow Trapa Chocolates Turned a Rainforest Photo Into a Grand Prix Win
"An Unrepeatable Photograph?" is a 2019 integrated campaign by Trapa Chocolates, created by FCB&FiRe Spain, that published a documentary photograph of a living Borneo rainforest in major Spanish consumer press to dramatise the brand's commitment to removing palm oil from its confectionery products.
The campaign debuted in Spain in November 2019, anchored by a single press image taken in Kalimantan, Borneo — a region under active deforestation pressure linked to palm oil cultivation. Trapa photographed the rainforest area and pledged to return to it, later using satellite imagery to document any change to the landscape. That structural promise transformed a conventional product claim into an act of environmental witness. As Ángel Amador, Communication Director at Trapa Chocolates, stated: "it is much more than a page of advertising in the press: it is a photograph that documents and certifies that this place is alive today and that tomorrow — if we don't look carefully at the labels on the things we buy — it may not be".
The campaign ran across an integrated media plan that included print publications, documentary content, trailers, and Instagram Stories, according to Reason Why. Planned placements included Esquire, Elle, Marie Claire, and Cosmopolitan, as reported by reasonwhy.es. This media selection positioned Trapa inside editorial contexts where environmentally aware Spanish consumers were already engaged with lifestyle and sustainability content. The campaign earned a Clapboard Score of 67 out of 100, reflecting strong creative concept and cultural resonance alongside relatively contained measurable reach. The campaign's strategic significance extends beyond its media footprint: it repositioned a Spanish chocolate brand within a global confectionery landscape increasingly shaped by ethical sourcing transparency.
ARCHIVETrapa Chocolates built its 2019 campaign strategy on a growing consumer reckoning with palm oil's environmental cost. Palm oil cultivation is a leading driver of tropical deforestation, and by 2019 Spanish consumers — alongside broader European audiences — were demonstrating measurable appetite for cleaner-label food products. The campaign by FCB&FiRe Spain did not simply announce a product reformulation; it staged the consequence of the opposite choice, making the Borneo rainforest itself the subject of the advertising.
The global chocolate confectionery market stood at approximately 114.33 billion US dollars in 2019, according to Fortune Business Insights, with a forecast compound annual growth rate of 2.3 percent through 2027. Within that market, the top five global confectionery companies accounted for 44.9 percent of sector value in 2019, according to GlobalData. Competitors such as Mars Incorporated, which held an estimated 13.8 percent global confectionery share in 2019 according to GlobalData — with brands including M&M's, Snickers, and Twix — and Mondelez International were operating at a scale that made direct product competition difficult for a mid-sized Spanish brand like Trapa. FCB&FiRe identified that the most defensible ground for Trapa was not flavour or price but values: specifically, the verifiable removal of palm oil and what that decision meant for living ecosystems.
Jesús Revuelta, Chief Creative Officer at FCB&FiRe, framed the strategic philosophy directly: "Behaviour sends a much stronger message than any conventional advertising can." This conviction shaped every layer of the campaign's architecture — favouring documented action over brand assertion, and choosing media contexts where the claim could be interrogated rather than merely consumed.
The creative execution of "An Unrepeatable Photograph?" rests on a single, deliberate act: sending photographer Anne Roig to Kalimantan, Borneo to document a specific section of rainforest that palm oil deforestation threatens to erase. The resulting image — produced by Blua in collaboration with FCB&FiRe Spain — carries the weight of the campaign's entire argument. It is not an illustration of an environmental problem; it is evidence of a place that currently exists, with the campaign's title framing that existence as contingent and fleeting.
Creative direction came from Jesús Revuelta, Chief Creative Officer at FCB&FiRe, whose strategic instinct was to treat behaviour as media. The choice of Anne Roig as photographer was integral to that approach: the image needed to function simultaneously as documentary record, press advertisement, and proof of Trapa's stated commitment. Production company Blua executed across multiple formats, extending the core photograph into documentary content, campaign trailers, and Instagram Stories, as reported by reasonwhy.es. This multi-format production approach allowed a single creative idea to occupy both long-form editorial attention and the compressed, high-frequency environment of social media.
The planned print placements — Esquire, Elle, Marie Claire, and Cosmopolitan, as reported by reasonwhy.es — were chosen to place the Borneo image inside the same page spreads where Spanish consumers engage with fashion, lifestyle, and culture. That editorial context gave the photograph a different kind of authority than a dedicated environmental publication would have provided. The campaign's integrated structure, combining print, digital, and documentary formats, was what allowed a single photograph to function as both confectionery advertising and environmental testimony simultaneously.
"An Unrepeatable Photograph?" earned the Grand Prix in the Print category at El Sol 2019, the Ibero-American Festival of Communication and Advertising, as documented by campaignsoftheworld.com and marketingdirecto.com. The campaign collected four Gold awards at the same festival — Innovative Use of Print, Print Production, Best Photography, and Sustainability — alongside a Silver in Corporate Image PR, according to campaignsoftheworld.com. MarketingDirecto.com selected the campaign among six creative highlights of El Sol 2019, recognising its integration of environmental action with advertising craft.
No independently verified sales uplift or media reach figures for "An Unrepeatable Photograph?" are publicly available beyond award documentation and trade press coverage. What the award record does confirm is the industry's assessment of the campaign's structural effectiveness: the Grand Prix in Print is the highest individual category honour at El Sol, and winning it alongside four category Golds in a single campaign cycle is uncommon for a Spanish confectionery brand operating outside the tier of global competitors such as Mars Incorporated or Mondelez International.
The campaign's lineage matters for evaluating its impact. Trapa's environmental repositioning followed the brand's 2013 acquisition by Grupo Europraline, as reported by retailactual.com, with the palm oil-free commitment representing a measurable product change rather than a purely communicative stance. The satellite imagery follow-up — revisiting the photographed Borneo location to document any change — gave the campaign a verifiable second act that extended its credibility beyond the initial press run. In Spain's confectionery market, where larger multinational brands command dominant shelf presence, Trapa's award-validated narrative approach demonstrated that values-led differentiation can generate disproportionate creative and reputational return.
"An Unrepeatable Photograph?" is a 2019 integrated campaign by Trapa Chocolates and FCB&FiRe Spain that published a documentary photograph of a living Borneo rainforest to dramatise the brand's removal of palm oil from its confectionery products. The campaign ran in major Spanish consumer press including Esquire and Elle, and won the El Sol Grand Prix in Print.
FCB&FiRe Spain created the campaign. The agency's Chief Creative Officer, Jesús Revuelta, led the creative direction, with photography by Anne Roig and production by Blua. FCB&FiRe's strategic premise, as Revuelta stated, was that documented behaviour communicates more powerfully than conventional advertising.
The campaign won the Grand Prix in Print at El Sol 2019, according to campaignsoftheworld.com and marketingdirecto.com. It also collected four Gold awards — Innovative Use of Print, Print Production, Best Photography, and Sustainability — and a Silver in Corporate Image PR at the same festival.
Palm oil cultivation is a documented driver of tropical deforestation. Trapa's removal of palm oil from its confectionery products followed the brand's 2013 acquisition by Grupo Europraline, as reported by retailactual.com, representing a product-level commitment the "An Unrepeatable Photograph?" campaign then communicated through documentary photography in Kalimantan, Borneo.
Photographer Anne Roig shot the image in Kalimantan, Borneo — a region under active deforestation pressure linked to palm oil cultivation. Trapa pledged to return to the same location, later using satellite imagery to document any landscape change, giving the campaign a verifiable environmental follow-up beyond its initial press run.
Clapboard assigns "An Unrepeatable Photograph?" a score of 67 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative concept and cultural resonance in the Spanish confectionery market, balanced against relatively contained measurable audience reach for a campaign that operated primarily within premium print and integrated digital formats.
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