Human Intelligence

Over 50 years ago, Long Island Sound was an unnatural disaster flowing with raw sewage, chemicals, toxins, and dead zones. Wetlands disappeared. Beaches closed. Wildlife and marine life were poisoned.
 
It took the 1972 Clean Water Act to help stem the tide of pollution, nationally. But it took Save the Sound to enforce the Clean Water Act, locally. By monitoring the waters, exposing polluters, and advocating for stricter environmental laws, Save the Sound  became the region’s leading and most effective environmental organization. 

 

Except when it came to effective marketing and growing membership.

 

So they cast their net for a new agency setting ambitious goals: To engage one million voices by increasing awareness, membership, fundraising, and volunteering. To redefine the organization in a new, meaningful, authentic way. To professionalize their marketing with a new organizing idea that could unify the organization’s many different areas of focus and, most of all, break through the clutter.
 

Human Intelligence conducted comprehensive research, interviews, and strategic workshops to arrive at a few simple yet totally overlooked truths. Most people have no idea how crucial Long Island Sound is to their lives and livelihoods. Most people have no idea that protecting nature is an act of self-protection. Most people care deeply about the environment, but only when it affects them, personally. And last but not least, most people don’t see what Save the Sound sees: the unlimited opportunities to restore Long Island Sound to what it could and should be. 

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We summarized it all with the line: Protecting Your Local Paradise. Each word is meaningful. “Protecting” because that’s ultimately what Save the Sound does. “Your” because people act in their own self-interest. “Local” because people care most about what’s happening in their own backyard. “Paradise” because, at its best, Long Island Sound is a paradise. 

We broke through visually by eschewing the usual world-class Nat-Geo-level-photography. Instead we engaged an acclaimed artist to create unique and ownable naturalist illustrations.

 

And then we let nature do the talking in the first-person with pride and a little attitude to explain how marine life, wildlife, and plant life improve human life.

 

The work speaks for itself, literally.