Trapped in a Loop: society’s fossil fuel dependency illustrated through innovative visuals in new campaign

Emissions from fossil fuels are deeply embedded in every aspect of our daily lives. In a new campaign, the Swedish energy company Vattenfall illustrates the pervasive grip of fossil fuels on our society through innovative visual techniques.

Fossil fuels leave their mark on every facet of modern life, including unexpected areas we might not even think of, such as the music we stream and enjoy* and our most cherished memories we collect with our cameras and phones**. Even areas where we wouldn’t expect fossil fuels to be present, such as electric cars, actually still depend on fossil fuels during production and manufacturing.

The campaign highlights these examples, along with numerous other unexpected ones, to underscore how every aspect of society remains dependent on fossil fuels. The sense of entrapment is shown by using an intriguing technique: the scenes portray life proceeding at a normal pace while simultaneously showing certain individuals and objects trapped in a loop. In the complementary proof point films, Vattenfall highlights specific areas in which they are working to help various sectors of society break free from fossil fuels.

“Nothing captures the feeling of being trapped quite like a repeating loop, which serves as a compelling visual metaphor. However, we aimed to achieve something more distinctive to truly convey the sense of entrapment. To illustrate society’s fossil fuel dependency, we introduced loops that allow the world to continue at a normal pace while ensnaring certain individuals and objects within them. This required some interesting filming challenges; essentially, we stacked multiple shots to achieve the final result of a natural world with unnatural loops. This approach blends the surreal with the real, pushing the boundaries of storytelling. We wanted to captivate the viewer while delivering a crucial message: the urgent need for fossil freedom”, says one of the directors, Luke Taylor.

Vattenfall actively works on supporting several industries in becoming fossil free and has numerous projects with partners across industries in various stages, ranging from exploration and development to implementation. The scope of the projects and partnerships allows Vattenfall to take steps towards enabling the fossil freedom that drives society forward. They have also been dedicated to showcasing their journey towards achieving fossil freedom, to promote the possibilities and attract new partners. With this campaign, Vattenfall is aiming to continue the conversation by introducing a new brand concept in which the company places more emphasis on discussing structural societal change rather than just climate change.

“Our efforts to free society from its dependency on fossil fuels encompass various areas, ranging from initiatives like creating fossil-free steel, decarbonising industries and building new wind farms. We focus on societal change, not just climate change. To make this message compelling, we also need to be able to demonstrate the depth of our fossil fuel dependency and show that the societal perspective forms the foundation of our approach across all our projects, including forging partnerships across industries, developing different technologies and working collaboratively across disciplines”, explains Julia Klausch, Brand Campaign Manager at Vattenfall.

“Our dependency on fossil fuels is not a new topic of discussion. However, to foster engagement, it’s essential to discover innovative ways to communicate these challenges. Vattenfall has a history of pushing the boundaries in its communication, making conversation about the climate interesting and engaging. They recently collaborated with Cara Delevingne to showcase the potential of fossil free hydrogen and they are working with CAKE to produce the world’s first truly fossil free motorcycle. Their latest campaign represents a completely new approach to visualising our dependency on fossil fuels and is the result of intense collaboration, involving our team in Stockholm, the DDB network and the directors working on the film”, says Simon Higby, Nordic Creative Director at DDB.

The campaign will be active across most of Vattenfall’s consumer markets, spanning Sweden, Finland and Germany, commencing from week 41. Later on it will also be launched in the Netherlands. The campaign will feature TV commercials (cinema in Germany), social media and digital components, along with out-of-home (OOH) advertising and print materials.

Read more at Vattenfall.

*One hour of streaming music produces 55g of CO2. Streaming an album more than 27 times will likely use more energy than it takes to produce and manufacture the same CD. (Keele University, 2019)

** Automatically backing up photos is filling up data servers and contributing 355,000 tons of carbon dioxide every year in the UK. (Institution of Engineering and Technology report, 2021)

Source: Vattenfall

  Campaign, Climate Change, DDB, Marketing, Nord DDB, Vattenfall