What started as a classroom assignment became a real-world campaign to care for marine life. A project by Humber Creative Advertising students Ceilidh Pate, Abby Henderson-Bowman and Lazar Fazlagic officially launched a project in a partnership with global environmental charity Ocean Wise on March 1.
Their campaign, Protect the Peculiar, draws on Gen Z’s fascination with space and sci-fi creatures to inspire young people to care about marine life.
The idea, which started as a school assignment, evolved into an official Ocean Wise initiative, marking an exciting first for the students involved.
Using striking visuals and clever messaging to highlight the importance of protecting bizarre and lesser-known marine species, reinforcing that every creature, no matter how strange, plays a vital role in ocean ecosystems.
The idea for Protect the Peculiar was born from an assignment to pitch to guest speaker Nick Schultz from Ocean Wise, a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and conserving the world's oceans, where he presented a challenge of appealing to Gen Z to donate and get involved.
“I thought it was incredibly cool that they were diving into the sort of correlation between space and the ocean, and the creepy creatures and things that exist in both,” Shultz said.
To create their campaign, the advertisers started with finding ocean life that stuck out to them, starting with animals that didn’t seem like they were from earth, Henderson-Bowman said.
Their campaign featured creatures like the angler fish, known for a light like flickering off its head, and long needle-like teeth, and then marketing these creatures in a kitschy way that draws in Gen Z.
Featuring facts about the animal's habitats, food sources and skills, the campaign allows people to learn and feel a connection to these fascinating, uncommonly known creatures.
Through the roll-out of the campaign, the students saw their work unveiled on the first banner on the Ocean Wise website, and then the homepage that links to the campaign they began a year ago.
“It's such a cool client as well for a first client...so getting to use our creativity, our ideas and seeing those (is cool), but then also helping them raise donations and raise money to help them do their work...the combination of all that is really, really rewarding,” Fazlagic said.
The students were financially compensated for their work and credited on their creations on the website.
Pate said it’s fulfilling this is being recognized by the company and feels worthy of being made into a campaign where they were credited for their efforts.
These students are not just using this as a cool portfolio piece, but also gaining experience working with industry professionals, with meetings, regular emails, and they can take this knowledge to possible employers.
“They've also been very flexible with us knowing that we're students and we have so much other stuff on our plate...and I think it was a very good first experience for us, starting off doing something like this,” Henderson-Bowman said.
For those interested in learning more about Protect the Peculiar and how they can get involved, Ocean Wise encourages people to visit their website at Ocean.org or stay tuned through social media.
