Subconsciously, we love glass. The way it feels cool in our hands, sparkles in sunlight, clinks when we toast. Glass is not a packaging material, it's a part of a brand's experience. Our campaign is Glass Is Life™. Across cultures, we brought life to a community that connects with glass; because glass alone preserves flavor, contains no harmful chemicals, is made from sand, is safe for oceans, is endlessly recyclable, and is beautiful.
Glass packaging threads through many lives in our community. Household decision-makers who choose the healthiest packaging choice for families, tastemakers who want a product to taste exactly the way it should, and conscious consumers who make the right choice for the environment. Gourmands, surfers, mothers, foodies, DIYers.
Owens-Illinois a glass manufacturing company making 65% of the world's glass, and Doremus, a full-service B2B creative agency, realized in a throwaway culture and a consumer plastic world there is room for change by creating a community for pro-glass packaging advocates. We've developed social communities where individuals who choose glass for their children's health, the pureness of taste, and the health of the environment to come together and celebrate the movement for more glass.
At Glass Is Life we want to continue to push for a better tomorrow and develop social content and communities that welcome change. On our global Facebook page, 271K strong have each raised their virtual hands and said they want to be a part of this change; our Twitter channels, in six different languages, have been a place for sharing and engaging with a community that wants to hear about ocean studies and glass packaging trends due to health reasons. We have found that people want a place to advocate for more glass.
We encourage our community to share when, why and how they choose glass on their social channels to help drive change. Our glass-loving community members have shown us photos of new beers they have tested in glass, told us they are moving from plastic to glass because they want to be BPA-free and have showed us how they reuse and upcycle old jelly jars. Our glass loving community is active and Glass Is Life gives them a platform for sharing.
Last March, Glass Is Life partnered with the FADER at their FORT at SXSW creating a glass activation. Our on-site activation included showcasing glass' natural beauty through all of its elements. We had a "Bottle Brite" wall of colored glass bottles that we could move around to change designs. The ground was covered with sand because glass is as safe as the ingredients it is born from. We showed beauty through a paint station for painting bottles and sustainability through upcycled bottles hanging from the nearby tree. That all being said, we wanted to see how our community members choose glass and if our efforts at SXSW were paying off. We asked our millennial key target through Instagram and Twitter to show us how they choose glass daily through a photo and caption. We received nearly 1.3K entries in about 15 days and nearly tripled our Instagram community through contest participation amplification. From upcycled Coca-Cola bottles turned into vases to choosing soft drinks packaged in glass bottles. This is a quick view into our SXSW activation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoLg-LcEVp8
The community for choosing glass is alive; Glass Is Life gives it a platform for this change to thrive. Our campaign has neither the budget of big consumer brands nor the followership of a 501c3. We represent a company that makes glass – an industrial company that dates back to the early 1900's. But with a trash patch in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas, with science on the toxicity of BPA in plastic, we know that we have a real and just cause – the only 100% recyclable packaging. A piece of glass is FOREVER recyclable, reusable, inert. If it makes it into the ocean, you know what it becomes? Sand. So our movement is caught, not taught. People love glass. We just need to remind them that they do.