New Campaign Showcases How Google AI Is Helping to Restore Tassie’s Giant Kelp Forests, With Emotive

Most people aren’t aware of the existence of the Great Southern Reef straddling 5 Australian states, or the role that giant kelp - which grows in underwater forests reaching up to forty metres - plays in supporting that ecosystem. Let alone that only 5% of Tasmania’s giant kelp forests remain.

Using Google AI helps speed up the enormous data analytics required to decode the DNA of the surviving heat-resilient kelp and map the remaining forests for the first time to support restoration efforts.

Our hope is this story goes a little way to inspiring and re-energising Australians experiencing climate fatigue.

Zoe Hayes, head of brand, social, and YouTube Marketing AUNZ at Google, “The collaboration between Google, CSIRO, the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and The Nature Conservancy is part of Google Australia’s Digital Future Initiative — a $1B investment in Australian research, infrastructure & partnerships. A huge focus of the initiative is fostering Australian made technology and talent to address some of the world’s most pressing problems. Our hope is that this groundbreaking work will have an impact not just here in Australia, but globally.”

The challenge for the campaign was to draw attention to this hugely complex and largely invisible issue in an evocative way, in order to reveal the work being done to tackle it. The idea of The Invisible Forest does just that, illuminating a critical underwater ecosystem in need of urgent help.

The campaign works by making The Invisible Forest visible to Australians and comprises two parts. The first being highly digestible content in the form of a playful partnership with animator and TikTok star Sam Cotton. The second being a more detailed micro-documentary.

Cotton is famous for his cheeky animated observations on life. With 3 million followers around the world, his work often features Australian fauna, making him the perfect person to give voice to the inhabitants of our invisible giant kelp forests.

The creative partnership with Sam Cotton introduces the public to the project’s complex science in an entertaining way on YouTube and social media, priming them to learn more via the campaign's second pillar, the micro-documentary featuring Prof. Craig Johnson (Professor of Marine Ecology, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies), Dr. Anusuya Willis (Director of the Australian National Algae Culture Collection, CSIRO) and Grace Chung (Head of Google Research Australia).

Sam Cotton, animator, @SamCotton said, “I love our country and its wildlife, yeah even those chippy stealing seagulls, so when Google invited me to help shine a light on the story of the disappearing giant kelp habitats, and how they’re helping restore them, I was thrilled to be involved.”

Paul Sharp, creative director, Emotive said, “Google’s AI-driven giant kelp restoration collaboration is as big and complicated as those words together sound. It’s a super-important and very involved project that we needed to simplify in order to share with broader non-science audiences, and Sam’s (Cotton) popular bitesize takes on wildlife create a perfect portal to get people intrigued.”

The micro-documentary explains how Google AI will help create the first ever map of Australia’s giant kelp forests and support faster, more reliable monitoring over time. It will also help analyse the 5% of heat-resistant kelp that has survived to help local scientists regrow and restore it.

The campaign is rolling out nationally across YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, IG from Tuesday 9th April.