Media on Mars and Plastic Free July
Mapping with social conscience
Building global awareness for plastic waste reduction
Plastic Free July is a global movement committed to reducing plastic pollution. People can take part by reducing their use of single-use plastics or committing to a month of zero plastic in the home. The movement provides participants with a range of resources for engaging the local community and to influence change in local policy.
The Plastic Free July movement started in Perth in 2012 with 14 people committing to the campaign. This has since grown to an estimated 240 million in the 2019 campaign.
Plastic Free July engaged
Media on Mars, a Perth-based creative agency with a passion for creating social change, to rebrand and rebuild the Plastic Free July website at the end of 2018. Liveli partnered with Media on Mars to create a
Find Events Near You map for the public to identify areas of engagement during the Plastic Free July campaign.
MOVING AWAY FROM TIME-CONSUMING PROCESSES
Plastic Free July needed to find a way to easily communicate with stakeholders within the business as well as help people search events (such as beach clean ups) by company name, addresses or public points of interest.
In previous years, the Plastic Free July team would manually input addresses and details for events on their website - costing the team several hours of valuable time and increased the risk of human error.
It was decided that a digital mapping tool would both enable Media on Mars to communicate with campaign participants as well as increase their stakeholder engagement.
‘I’d rather have a million people avoid the easy plastics, than a handful of people doing it hardcore and not using plastic anymore’
- Isabel Kruger, Communication Designer, Media on Mars
A dynamic, multi-purpose map
Liveli provided Media on Mars with the licensing and knowledge required to build the Find Events Near You map and integrate it into the Plastic Free July website.
The objective of the map was to encourage campaign participants to upload their event details to the Find Events Near You map, which would then enable the Plastic Free July team to validate and publish the events within minutes. The same map can also be used as a communication tool post-campaign to highlight the impact and international involvement.
Liveli and Media on Mars decided the familiar interface of Google Maps and its Places information would be the most appropriate and scalable option for the mapping tool. Liveli’s Senior Account Manager, Dion Fleming worked closely with Media on Mars to understand the requirements and build the map in time for the July 2019 campaign deadline.
“Having Dion there to explain the concept for the whole team made the process very transparent.”
- Isabel Kruger, Communication Designer, Media on Mars.
Transparent information for the public and stakeholders
Through the collaborative efforts of Media on Mars and Liveli, Plastic Free July now has a dynamic map that’s built to scale as the number of participant events continues to grow and a powerful stakeholder engagement tool for improved future fundraising efforts.
The Find Events Near You map puts the public in control of adding events and gives them the digital ownership and involvement in the campaign that was not previously possible. With the addition of the map, the number of events registered grew from approx. 30 events in Australia in 2018 to 247 worldwide in 2019.
The team now has the capability in place to easily follow up with the public if there is missing information in their listed event and has cut the time spent inputting the event details from 10 minutes to 30 seconds per event.
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“It’s about usability. People aren’t likely to read information, but if they see a map and they can zoom into their area and they can see visually where events are happening, it’s a lot easier for people to use.”
- Isabel Kruger, Communication Designer, Media on Mars