The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2025
CarrefourSA turns fishing town Ocaklar into a ghost town built from sea-recovered nets
CarrefourSA and TBWA\Istanbul draped Ocaklar in abandoned fishing nets to warn that if fishing dies, the town dies — a Cannes 2025 Gold Lion.
CarrefourSA
What it had to solve
Ocaklar, a coastal town in Balıkesir Erdek, lives off small-scale fishing, but abandoned, lost and discarded nets — ghost gear — keep ensnaring marine life and quietly destroying the fishery. CarrefourSA, which sells sustainable seafood, gave TBWA\Istanbul a one-page brief: the fishing economy was under threat and the retailer was taking steps to reverse it.
How it works
Ocaklar, a small coastal town in the Balıkesir Erdek district of Turkey, depends on small-scale fishing for its livelihood. But beneath the surface, abandoned, lost or discarded nets — 'ghost gear' — keep ensnaring fish and destroying the habitats they need to reproduce, slowly eroding the very economy the town lives on.
Turkish supermarket chain CarrefourSA, a subsidiary of Sabancı Holding and the Carrefour Group, had been working on sustainable seafood and wanted to reverse the situation. It gave TBWA\Istanbul a one-page brief, and the agency's starting point was stark: when fishing disappears, Ocaklar will become a ghost town. The idea was to build that ghost town now, out of the nets themselves.
After about eighteen months of preparation — including winning over the town, whose residents embraced the project — on 27 February 2025 the team covered Ocaklar in ghost nets recovered from the sea. The installation stayed for three days; veteran fishers, young people and residents told their stories in an accompanying film, giving the stark visual a human voice.
CarrefourSA paired the spectacle with substance: training for small-scale fishers, environmental clean-up projects and a 'Ghost Nets' website with educational videos. The project spread organically to millions of views, won the Gold Lion in Design (Brand Environment & Experience Design) at Cannes Lions 2025, and its makers hoped it would push policymakers to protect the Marmara Sea.
Why it lands
- It surfaces a submerged truth: ghost nets are invisible under the sea, so the campaign pulled them up and made the danger occupy the town's own streets.
- The medium is the message — the nets are both the problem and the artwork, which makes the warning feel material rather than abstract.
- It gave the community the voice: veteran fishers and residents appear in the film, so the campaign protects the people it depicts instead of speaking over them.
- The installation was matched with training and education, turning awareness into practical help for the fishermen the town depends on.
What it did
The project spread organically to millions of views, became a talking point for protecting the Marmara Sea, and won the Gold Lion in Design (Brand Environment & Experience Design) at Cannes Lions 2025.
What you can take
Make the problem's own material the medium: recovered nets draped over a living town made an invisible threat unmissable, and residents' voices turned the stunt into a community's warning.
Since then
The installation ran for three days in February 2025 and lived on as the campaign film and educational content; CarrefourSA continued its sustainability program with fisher training, clean-up projects and the Ghost Nets website. TBWA\Istanbul said millions saw the project and hoped it would help secure decisive measures to protect the Marmara Sea and Ocaklar's fishing heritage; Cannes Lions 2025 awarded it a Gold Lion in Design.
Sources
- CarrefourSA — Ghost Town: Entry
- Ghost Town: "Surfacing a Submerged Truth"
- Turkish retailer CarrefourSA creates "ghost town" to show impact abandoned gear has on small-scale fishing
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