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'Your dinner tonight,
soufflé of butts'


Agency cooks up a campaign for a clean beach group

May 8, 2008

You’re out at the farmers market on a sunny Saturday afternoon, browsing through the zucchini and tangerines, moving from vendor to vendor, when you come upon a selection of Styrofoam trays wrapped in cellophane like those you'd see at your local supermarket.

Each has a sticker on it, just as you would see at the store.

You look closer. It’s not food at all, but trash, junk, odds and ends of plastic and cigarette butts.

What is this, you wonder?

What you're looking at is really an alternative out-of-home campaign for a group that promotes the protection of the beaches, called Surfrider, based in San Clemente, Calif.

The goal of the campaign, developed and executed by Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles, was to raise awareness of the threat to beaches by the huge amounts of trash that's washed up and left behind.

Surfrider wanted the agency creative sorts to come up with a campaign that would reach consumers in places they would not expect it. A farmers market seemed to fit that definition handily.

“It started with a beach cleanup and we ended up with 30 or 40 bags,” says Felipe Bascope, creative director on the project.

He says the garbage was separated and placed in the cellophane and Styrofoam packaging, then taken to area markets. At each stand, Surfrider members and agency people were there to explain the campaign and answer people's questions.

“We didn’t know if it would offend anybody, but people were compelled and they stayed, and they really dug it,” says Bascope.



Diego Vasquez is a staff writer for Media Life.




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