Surfrider's Plastic Blood ad resolves blood cells into red bottle caps

Make viewers feel, not just read, the new scientific news that plastic pollutes our bodies as much as the oceans — and push the precautionary appeal: protect yourself, say no to plastic.

A DOOH visual trick: floating 'blood cells' under a microscope resolve into red plastic bottle tops, carrying the headline 'Plastic Also Flows Through Our Veins'.

Ultra-HD LCD wall screens and digital billboards in select Paris Métro and RER stations via Mediatransports and JCDecaux, plus print and static billboards, with the DOOH animated so the cells come into focus; supported on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Launched for World Health Day, 8 April 2022, across Paris transport screens and outdoor sites; no campaign metrics in the source. The study it amplifies found the particles can travel around the body and may lodge in organs.

The discovery that plastic waste contaminates not only the planet but our blood is the heart of 'Plastic Blood', a dramatic European print and digital campaign launched for World Health Day by agency Babel for the ocean-preservation charity Surfrider Foundation Europe. It responds to fresh research revealing that tiny plastic particles have been found in human blood for the first time.

The study, published in Environment International, shows microplastics and nanoplastics — fragments invisible to the naked eye — can travel around the body and may lodge in organs; the long-term health impact is unknown, but plastic carries and releases toxic chemicals including endocrine disruptors. The campaign's digital execution is a visual trick: what appears to be floating blood cells under a microscope comes into focus to reveal red plastic bottle tops, under the headline 'Plastic Also Flows Through Our Veins'.

From 8 April 2022 the work ran on ultra-HD LCD wall screens and digital billboards in select Paris Métro and RER stations and other outdoor locations via Mediatransports and JCDecaux, supported on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 'We wanted to address this in an impactful way, making the viewer feel the news,' explained Jean-Laurent Py, creative director at Babel. Surfrider's Gaëlle Haut added that with effects unknown, 'it is essential to apply the precautionary principle and limit our exposure to plastic.'

A first-time scientific finding gave the campaign a hard news hook for World Health Day.

Microplastics are invisible; a microscope-style reveal makes the invisible legible at a glance.

Transport-screen DOOH lets the animation of cells resolving into caps play out in a captive commute.

The ocean charity needed to reframe its issue from environmental to personal health.

When the news is a study, stage it: an optical illusion that makes commuters discover the finding themselves lands harder than quoting the journal at them.

The campaign launched on 8 April 2022 across Paris transport networks and social channels; the source records no follow-up metrics.