The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2023–2024
FANCL's recycle ad uses a Minato Mirai mosaic built from its own bottle fragments
FANCL turned its recycling program into an ad: a Minato Mirai mosaic made from the very bottle fragments the program processes.
FANCL
What it had to solve
FANCL's additive-free cosmetics use plastic containers that can only be disassembled by hand, and the company is working to realise bottle-to-bottle recycling of them. It also wanted customers to know its desire to preserve beautiful landscapes for future generations.
How it works
FANCL's additive-free cosmetics come in plastic containers that can only be disassembled by hand, and the company is working toward bottle-to-bottle recycling of them. Alongside the technical effort, it wanted customers to understand its desire to preserve beautiful landscapes for future generations.
The campaign turned the recycling process into the artwork. FANCL asked a mosaic artist who restores world heritage to create a landscape of Minato Mirai, near the company's headquarters, using fragments of plastic bottles produced during the recycling process.
That mosaic then became the basis of an advertising campaign, so the message and its material were the same thing: a landscape preserved, built from the containers the program reclaims. The work is preserved in D&AD's Illustration archive, and the page records no audience figures.
Why it lands
- Building the artwork from actual recycled fragments made the program tangible — customers could see the bottles' second life as a landscape.
- Commissioning a world-heritage restorer linked the idea of preserving landscapes to the craft of restoring them, giving the claim authority.
- The mosaic turned an environmental process into something beautiful enough to carry an advertising campaign instead of a corporate report.
What it did
The campaign let customers see the recycling loop with their own eyes — the advertisement itself was made from the bottles the program reclaims. The work is preserved in D&AD's Illustration archive, which records no reach figures.
What you can take
When a process is invisible, build the message from its own byproduct: the material of the ad then proves the claim the ad is making.
Since then
The campaign is preserved in D&AD's Illustration archive, and the page records no audience figures, so the case rests on the mechanism: the advertisement itself was made from the containers the recycling program processes, turning the company's claim into visible proof. It stands as an example of showing a sustainability process through its own output rather than describing it.
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