Director Chris Hugall’s Greenpeace Film Wins The BAD Arrow Award

For a second year running The British Arrow’s initiative BAD took part in selecting winners for this year’s awards. The BAD judges selected three winning films, one of which was Hoi Polloi director, Chris Hugall’s film ‘The Ocean of The Future’ for Greenpeace and Ogilvy.

The film came off the back off a Greenpeace petition calling on supermarkets to dramatically reduce their plastic footprint, which has already been signed by more than 415,000 people to date.

The concept behind the campaign was born through shocking statistics such as a truckload of plastic enters our oceans every minute. Since plastic take decades and sometimes even centuries to break down, it persists in the marine environment for an incredibly long time, whilst more and more accumulates. The Ogilvy UK team wanted to illustrate the ugly reality of plastic waste.

The video opens on a school trip. An excited group of children are queuing at Dingle aquarium in the Republic of Ireland to see an ‘Ocean of the Future’ exhibition. The children excitedly shout out what they are most looking forward to seeing – penguins, octopus, catfish – and eyes-wide they eagerly rush into the aquarium to marvel at the abundance of ocean life.

But as the children look into the water, they realise that they aren’t seeing colourful fish and marine wildlife, the dark aquarium is actually full of single-use plastic items like bottles, bags and six-pack drinks can rings.

The children are dismayed as they realise that there aren’t any fish in the water at all. The ocean of the future they see is clogged up with plastic rubbish. Information signs in the aquarium provide details of the plastic drinks bottle and six-pack ring, to portray a lifeless ocean filled with plastics rather than the precious marine life we love and have come to love even more through series such as David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II.

Pete Shuttleworth, managing director, Hoi Polloi Media, said: “We are honoured to have won this award and are extremely proud to have played a part in creating an impactful film which illustrates the problem with plastic. We hope this film has helped to bring about change."

Mick Mahoney, chief creative officer, Ogilvy & Mather Advertising London, said: "We’re extremely proud to be partnering with Greenpeace to tackle what is a hugely pressing issue. Aquariums are often viewed as perfect, manicured worlds which give us a false sense of security when it comes to the state of our ocean. What we wanted to bring to life was the reality of what the future looks like if we continue as we are today. The support we’ve had to bring this idea to life has been incredible.”