Last week, Los Angeles drivers saw a wave of eyebrow-raising billboards with URLs like suck-it-sea-otters.org and please-poison-us-with-microplastics.org. The fake caused a darkly comic “vision” for local beaches, suggesting indifference to sea life and pollution. Now, the Surfrider Foundation has revealed that it seeded the stunt.
Street-level stickers have since “hijacked” the out-of-home to redirect viewers to Surfrider’s real message: If you are not a friend of the ocean, what are you really supporting? The twist reframes passivity as complicity and pushes Angelenos to join the movement at surfrider.org.
The work is part of the latest wave of Surfrider’s ‘The Ocean Needs More Friends’ platform, created in collaboration with 72andSunny. Talent partners, including filmmaker Jason Wise, environmental brand strategist Meg Haywood Sullivan, comedian Chad Kroeger, and environmental creator Lauren Bash, will amplify the message across social channels. Watch below:
“Now, more than ever, the state of our oceans requires urgent attention,” added Bryan Rowles, 72andSunny Executive Creative Director and Partner. “This latest iteration of Surfrider’s ‘The Ocean Needs More Friends’ platform is designed to playfully shock people out of their apathy toward ocean conservancy while also inviting them, in surprising ways, to join Surfrider and become a friend of the ocean. Because the ocean needs all the friends it can get right now.”
“With our ocean under unprecedented threats from offshore drilling and climate change to plastic pollution and public apathy, the Surfrider Foundation is doubling down on its mission to protect our coasts,” said Eddie Anaya, Surfrider’s Sr. Director of Marketing and Communication. “This new phase of our campaign, ‘The Ocean Needs More Friends,’ created in partnership with powerhouse global agency 72andSunny, is designed to break through the noise with bold, provocative messaging that confronts indifference head-on. We are not just raising awareness, we are challenging the public to act.”
Anaya adds, “Because if you are not helping to protect our natural playground, are you really a friend of the ocean? This is a critical moment, and we encourage everyone to join us by becoming a member of Surfrider so that we can amplify our work protecting our ocean and beaches.”
The goal is simple. Stop scrolling past the crisis. Join. Donate. Show up for the coast.
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