The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2025–2026
Spoor's Birdwatcher lets the public fly real bird paths over wind farms — 3 Cannes Lions
Spoor turns AI bird-monitoring data into a gull's-eye microsite — real flight paths prove turbines and wildlife coexist; 3 Cannes Lions 2026.
Spoor
What it had to solve
Wind energy was scaling faster than ever, but regulators, communities and investors kept asking the same question: what happens to the birds? For decades the industry relied on human observers with binoculars, producing slow, fragmented data that often led to oversized buffer zones and stalled permits — while estimates put US wind-facility bird deaths at several hundred thousand to over 1.2 million a year. Spoor, a climate-tech company, had built AI systems that answered the question with continuous evidence, but that evidence sat buried in reports most people never read.
How it works
Wind energy carries an unresolved question: every year birds and bats, including endangered and protected species, face collision and habitat risks around wind farms, and estimates suggest US wind facilities alone kill several hundred thousand to over 1.2 million birds annually. For decades, the industry answered regulators with human observers holding binoculars, producing slow, fragmented data that often led to oversized buffer zones and stalled permits at exactly the moment renewable energy needed to scale faster.
Spoor built a technological answer: a patent-protected Sky Intelligence Platform combining AI computer vision, geometric flight analysis and ecological knowledge to continuously detect, track and classify birds, with detection ranges up to 1.5 kilometers and at least 95% accuracy. But Spoor's CEO Ask Helseth saw a communication problem — the data existed, yet sat in reports that most people never read. With FP7 McCANN MENAT and MRM MENAT, Spoor launched The Birdwatcher in April 2026 to make that data a visible, public record.
The campaign ecosystem included an interactive microsite where users explore data-driven flight paths through the eyes of the largest gull on earth, an Instagram feed documenting bird activity, and a physical bird guidebook with augmented-reality features for policymakers and industry stakeholders. The creative director, Federico Fanti, framed it bluntly: the argument against wind energy was built on missing data; Spoor produced it, and The Birdwatcher made sure the world saw it.
The evidence itself backed the story: at Aberdeen Bay, one Spoor system monitored bird activity around a turbine for 19 months, covering roughly 95% of daylight hours, recording 2,007 bird tracks, flagging five potential collision events and confirming none. Independent scientific trials validated the detection and tracking against human observers, and the campaign earned one Silver Lion and two Bronze Lions across Digital Craft and Design at Cannes Lions 2026.
Why it lands
- The strategy treated invisible evidence as the enemy: instead of claiming coexistence, the campaign let people see the actual flight data, so the proof did the persuading.
- The gull's-eye point of view turned dry tracking data into an emotional, embodied experience — the audience occupies the animal the story is about.
- Each format targeted a different decision-maker: the microsite for the public, the live Instagram feed for continuous transparency, and the AR guidebook for policymakers and industry.
- The campaign rested on verifiable numbers — 19 months, 2,007 tracks, five flags, zero confirmed collisions — so the visibility exercise could not be dismissed as marketing.
What it did
The campaign made invisible evidence visible, and the awards followed: one Silver Lion and two Bronze Lions across Digital Craft and Design at Cannes Lions 2026. Underlying the storytelling was proof the data could deliver — at Aberdeen Bay one system monitored a turbine for 19 months, covering roughly 95% of daylight hours, recording 2,007 bird tracks, flagging five potential collision events and confirming none.
What you can take
When a product's strongest evidence is invisible, buried in reports, the creative job is to make it an experience people can feel; proof that convinces regulators first has to be seen by everyone.
Since then
The Birdwatcher became FP7 McCANN MENAT's standout Cannes Lions 2026 entry, collecting one Silver Lion and two Bronze Lions across Digital Craft and Design, developed in collaboration with MRM MENAT, and contributing to the agency being named MENA Network of the Year at the festival. The campaign also positioned Spoor's monitoring data as infrastructure rather than a manual process, supporting the company's push into offshore monitoring from buoys and metocean platforms and its role in replacing assumptions with evidence in wind-project permitting.
Sources
- How 'The Birdwatcher' Is Changing How Wind Energy Sees Wildlife
- FP7 McCANN MENAT awarded as the MENA Network of the Year at Cannes Lions 2026
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