COP 14, 09.03.2009

The summary of COP 14 PR campaign

Partner of Promotion PR Agency ran the educational PR campaign 'Change your habits for good ones! Change the climate for better one!' for COP 14 - the biggest political conference organized in Poland so far.

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COP 14 - the 14th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), along with the 4th Session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol took place in Poznan on 1-12 December 2008. Nearly 12000 people including 186 official governmental delegations and almost 1000 journalists came to Poznan in order to participate in the world-wide discussion on climate changes.



The Conference was honoured by the presence of such significant guests like the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Al Gore, the UN Executive Secretary, Ban Ki-moon and senator John Kerry.

The public opinion poll carried out before the campaign proved that the PR program, preceding the Conference, had to face several difficulties. The most important were the fact that Polish media were not interested in the subject of climate changes and that in Poland there was no tradition nor habits of the natural environment protection.

Therefore the principal goals of the COP 14 PR campaign were to build the public consciousness towards the threats related to climate changes, to inspire the public discussion on this subject and to promote the eco-friendly activities among Polish people.
In order to realize all of these aims as well as to reach the biggest possible amount of people there were distinguished 3 strategic target groups: young people (12-19), adults (20-40) and adults (40+). For each of them there was prepared a pool of modern communication activities, including integrated marketing tools and adapted to the age, interests and expectations of the concrete recipients.
For example, communication activities for young people focused on competitions, happenings and other special actions.
One of them was a unique school program. In cooperation with the expert there were prepared special school materials including e.g. the scenario of lesson concerning climate changes, active forms of teaching and the eco-guide for teenagers. Over 500 Polish schools participated in this action. On the other hand the communication activities directed to adults aged 20 to 40 concentrated mainly on modern online activities like e.g. the climate profile on MySpace.pl, the blog 'Poland - climate to change' or the special COP 14 island that was created in the virtual world of Second Life. Various unusual PR activities were also prepared for adults 40+. One of them was e.g. the action 'More green' conducted in cooperation with one of the most popular Polish daily newspapers 'Eco of a day'. Within this activity there were written several articles presenting the subject of climate changes in context of green balconies. Another action directed to adults 40+ was the 'Aquarium' project. During this happening supported by the meaningful comment 'If we don't start to counteract the climate changes, some countries will soon disappear under the water' there was flooded a model of the exemplary city.

All of these innovative actions supported by the active work of the press office had a fundamental role in calling people's attention to the dangers related to the progressing process of global warming.

The 4-month PR campaign "Change your habits for good ones! Change the climate for better one!" was a great success and its media results were the highest among the public campaigns run in Poland so far. Owing to the numerous PR activities supported by the dynamic media relations in the course of the campaign the subject of climate changes was widely present both in media and in public discussion.

During 4 months of the campaign the number of media publications concerning the COP 14 Conference and climate changes reached nearly 6000, what is really the unprecedented result for the Polish reality! In comparison, the number of public campaigns' clippings run in Poland in course of few years usually reaches up to several hundreds. For example the repeatedly awarded education campaign 'The six fuel' run for one of the leading companies on Polish building market in the years 2005-2008 effected in 622 clippings.

Furthermore, during the 12-day Conference the 4 main representatives of the Ministry of Environment gave more than 50 interviews for international media, what means that, assuming that there are 8 hours of work during one day, they talked to journalists nearly every 1,5 hours.
Also all the special activities conducted within the framework of the campaign enjoyed a great popularity. All the happenings arranged by the agency were attended by several dozen local media and over 3000 people all together and the unique climate island in Second Life only in December was visited by over 2800 guests.

In turn the game organized in cooperation with one of the most popular Polish internet communicators was participated by more than 3100 people. Also the ecological blog led within the campaign gained the wide group of loyal readers and became one of the most popular environmental blogs in Poland.

In result of all conducted activities supported by the active media relations in the course of the COP 14 campaign the new environmental topics appeared in media at least once every second day, what means that the subject of climate changes became the most important topic in the Polish public discussion and one of the most important subjects raised in national media since September till December 2008.

The League of American Communication Professionals (LACP) has already ranked the COP 14 PR campaign to the group of 10 best world communication programs in 2008 concerning the responsibility for the natural environment.

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COP 14 (Conference of the Parties - COP) 14 Konferencja Stron Ramowej Konwencji Narodów Zjednoczonych w sprawie Zmian Klimatu (UNFCCC) wraz z 4 Sesją Spotkania Stron Protokołu z Kioto) odbyła się 1 - 12 grudnia 2008 r. w Poznaniu. Organizatorem Konferencji jest Sekretariat Konwencji Narodów Zjednoczonych ds. Zmian Klimatu (UNFCCC, www.unfccc.int), gospodarzem - Rząd RP, a koordynatorem przygotowań z ramienia Rządu - Ministerstwo Środowiska RP (www.cop14.gov.pl).

Szerszych informacji udziela:

Magda Sikorska
Koordynator ds. mediów / Oficer Łącznikowy Kraju Goszczącego COP 14
Tel: (22) 579 27 22
Kom: 0 695 100 978
E-mail:

Joanna Józefiak
Account Executive, Partner of Promotion
Tel: (22) 858 74 58 w. 60
E-mail: