Circul8 Blog » News

Plastiki Fantastiki: Their Voyage is Over, but the Journey Continues for David de Rothschild

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:46:48 +0000

We sent down our man in the field today to the arrival of Plastiki in Darling Harbour.

 The crew of Plastiki has had, what seems like, an impossible journey. Essentially floating across the Pacific Ocean on a pile of plastic bottles in 128 days with one goal, “To ban single use plastics”. Their boat was made of 12,500 plastic bottles to be precise, all stuck together with glue made of cashew nuts and sugarcane. Incidentally, Plastiki was designed by Australian ‘Sydney to Hobart’ winning designer, Andy Duvall.

  This boat embodied their core message and the journey from San Francisco to Sydney a plea for help from a green island.

  After having a drink of water, the man behind it all David de Rothschild said, “Anything is possible if you realise what you can do” in an effort to encourage people to find their own ways of reducing their dependence on plastic. As he stepped off he said. “I wish I was standing here saying we’ve solved the problem, but we haven’t”. 

 Ian Kiernan, the founder of Clean Up Australia revealed that there is approximately 13,000 pieces of plastic in every square kilometre in the Pacific Ocean. “This opens your eyes to a problem you can’t see" he continued, “We have an innate ability to invent things for our own convenience" often with a complete disregard for the repercussions to our environment.

  As the Plastiki crew were being welcomed into Darling Harbour, The U.S. Ambassador reminded us to "Never doubt the power of a small group of committed people to change the world". So committed indeed that one of the crew undertook this journey during the birth of his first child.

  David de Rothschild emphasised that it does not take one person to change how we use plastic because "Nobody is as smart as ‘Everybody’…" and the Plastiki was "The greatest exercise of teamwork" from the industrial designers, the glue makers to the bottle collectors, the expedition would not have been possible without the dedication of the team.

  David’s vision is aimed at challenging the "that’s just how we do it" mentality, because our society has become to accustomed to just using things once and throwing them away. 

 The fact is that nearly every piece of plastic ever made still exists today. The biggest problems are Plastic bottles, bottle lids, plastic bags and Styrofoam because they photodegrade (break into smaller bits of plastic) into the WATER and are ingested by animals. This became even more apparent when several plastic bottles floated by while we were waiting for Plastiki to arrive.

  After years of trying to clean up our harbour, Ian Kiernan said, "We need to put yesterday’s habits behind us", there has to be a better way.  

 Following the lead of groundbreaking town Bundanoon, other local councils are seeking to ban the sale of bottled water in an effort to reduce the plastic suffocating our Oceans.

Circul8 team

CIRCUL8 SCOOPS 2ND MAJOR AWARD FOR GREENPEACE CAMPAIGNS

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:55:58 +0000

AIMIA Award joins Webby Award in the Trophy Room at Surry Hills

It’s not often you can walk into the offices of a 3 year old agency and be confronted by a wall of major industry awards. The blossoming Sydney based digital agency Circul8 is the exception to this rule. Co-founders Alana Stocks and Creative Director Jamie Madden have wasted no time putting Circul8 on the map with Australia’s only win at the International Webby Awards in New York. Proving it was no fluke, the award was followed up with a win at the 16th annual AIMIA’s earlier this month in Melbourne.

The AIMIA-winning campaign for Greenpeace International, Action-Pact, saw over 20,000 people send a climate change messages to delegates at the December 09 summit in Copenhagen.
The campaign was a hit with public voters as well as the panel of judges at the AIMIA awards, with one judge quoted as saying “It’s a brilliant site, this was the only site I actually participated in, created my own entry and networked it via email, Facebook, and Twitter”

In 2009, Circul8 was the only Australian digital agency to win at the International Webby Awards in New York for the Send-a-Whale advocacy campaign for Greenpeace International, which saw 170,000 people create and send an origami whale to the Prime Minister of Japan, demanding an end to whaling.

Circul8 co-founders Alana stocks and Jamie Madden are excited about the recent wins.

“The social media scene has helped us grow by focusing on creative ideas that go that extra step to get noticed. People are spending hours posting status updates and engaging, telling everyone what you’re having for dinner or about your cat’s affair with the neighbors’ cactus ten times can get pretty dull. Our mandate is simple, we create brilliant content that people want to talk about and share” Jamie says

Alana is adamant that all great ideas are supported by great strategy and the changes in the online advertising landscape is seeing all sorts of industries scrambling to get on-board with new wave of media, including Twitter, Facebook and word-of-mouth campaigns.

“Advertising is now a two-way communication between a brand and its audience, it’s the most fundamental change since the advent of the moving picture, its impossible to ignore, if you do you might just wind up in some dark corner, talking to yourself.”

Circul8 are keen to build off the back of this momentum in 2010 and are currently working on a number of potential award winning projects.

AIMIA – Award Winners 2010

Click here to download the AIMIA Booklet

Circul8 team at the AIMIA Awards in Melbourne.

Photo Credit: "16th Annual AIMIA Awards - Red Carpet" by Amy Ward

Circul8 Five Word Acceptance Speech at the Webbys!

Michael — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:42:12 +0000

I’ll tell you something interesting. The Webby’s have a tradition. It’s very dark and mysterious. Passed on to by generation. What is this brooding myth? It refers to acceptance speeches. They are limited in length. But are infinite in creativity. Speeches must be five words. Or less, if you wish. Here are Jamie and Alana. With impeccable delivery of acceptance.

You may also want to check out the dedicated YouTube Webby Channel. It’s a new way of viewing events on YouTube

The Five Word Whale Tale

Michael — Mon, 25 May 2009 08:24:42 +0000

Help write the best story in the galaxy!

Circul8 have created The Five Word Whale Tale to celebrate their Webby win. "The Five Word Whale Tale" will support Jamie and Alana on their bravery quest to New York. So we made an online interactive story. You can add your five words to the story, to make it the best story ever in history!

We want everyone to be involved, so the story stretches from Sydney to New York. For that we’ll need thousands of authors - and you’re one of them. Here’s the coolest part - the best five words in the story will be used as their acceptance speech!

So add your five words now to the Whale Tale!

More beer… more beer….. more beer more beer!

Jamie — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:24:03 +0000

Our friend Mat Lovel launched a true beer last night, under the “giant rock” of a superband comprised of some of australia’s dirtiest old rockers.

check out the flavor!