The archive · Games & Play · Marketing decision · 2023–2024
WWF builds the world's first automated WhatsApp adventure to teach climate care
A fully automated WhatsApp adventure where players choose how to save a forest, spending 20 minutes learning about climate inside a chat.
WWF
What it had to solve
Overwhelmed by bad news and notifications, young people were switching off from the climate crisis. WWF wanted to reach them where their friends already are — WhatsApp, where about 90% of messages get read — instead of asking them to come to a campaign.
How it works
Young people were not ignoring climate change out of apathy; they were overwhelmed by bad news and notifications and switching off. WWF's task was to earn their attention back rather than add to the noise.
Its answer was to enter a habitat it had never used: WhatsApp, where friends already talk and roughly 90% of messages get read. Inside that space WWF built Tree of Hope, described as the world's first fully automated WhatsApp adventure. Players make choices to save a forest's ecosystem and spend about 20 minutes learning about climate issues through an unseen interactive experience in the chat.
The result was environmental education that plays like a game and arrives like a message from a friend. The D&AD jury praised the team for making gaming in a place whose primary function is texting, with environmental purpose. WWF said the new game engine and its many new contacts mean it can call on players whenever help is needed.
Why it lands
- The audience's problem was overload, not ignorance, so the fix had to change the format rather than repeat the facts.
- WhatsApp is where friends already talk and about 90% of messages get read, so the game met young people in a space they actually open.
- Making it a choose-your-own adventure let 20 minutes of climate learning feel like play, not homework.
- A fully automated engine meant the experience could run at scale, and every player became a contact WWF could reach again.
What it did
The campaign turned a messaging thread into a 20-minute environmental game and left WWF with a reusable game engine plus players it can mobilize whenever it needs help. The D&AD archive page records no player or completion numbers.
What you can take
Take the campaign to the channel attention already lives in: a branching game inside WhatsApp met people where messages actually get read, instead of competing for a visit.
Since then
Tree of Hope put environmental gaming inside a texting app, and the D&AD jury singled out exactly that inversion: creating play where the platform's primary function is not gaming. WWF framed the outcome as both a reusable game engine and a growing circle of players ready to act when the organization asks — a channel it can reopen for later causes rather than a one-off broadcast.
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