You won't believe what Wilson from Cast Away looks like today
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Wilson surely remains the most famous volleyball in Hollywood. Yet, in the incredible 25 years that have passed since he made his big screen splash as supporting actor to Tom Hanks in 2000's Cast Away, he's yet to get another major role.
These days, AI can make Tom Hanks look any age (see our piece on Tom Hanks' de-aging in Here). But what would Wilson look like? A sobering new campaign shows us.
The Odyssey of Wilson campaign mixes immersive website design, a short film, public installations in coastal cities and live activations during sports broadcasts. With the agency Africa Creative helming creative development, it was created by the Onda Azul Institute with telecoms company Vivo to promote UNESCO's new scientific frameworks ahead of the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice.
Wilson's imagined path through the world's oceans is used as a metaphor for the long-term degradation caused by plastics, bringing real datasets to life in a devastating interactive journey that covers 450 years of environmental change – the time it will take for Wilson to decay.
The experience traces currents, tides, and climate events to visualise the famous volleyball's transformation into microplastics, taking in ecological disasters like acidification, ice shelf collapse and rising sea levels along the way.
Scientific data can often be dry and off-putting, but in Wilson's story, Africa Creative have found a clever device to transform complex data into a story that resonates emotionally.
'This project is about making science human,' says André Luis Esteves, director at the Rio de Janeiro-based Onda Azul Institute. 'By following the journey of a simple object, we illustrate decades of invisible damage caused by plastic waste – and why it urgently needs global attention. With Vivo and inspired by UNESCO's scientific leadership, we've transformed data into a story people can feel.''Science alone doesn't move people – stories do," adds Raphael Vandystadt, VP of Sustainability at Africa Creative. "By turning complex data into a powerful visual journey, we help make the invisible visible. Communication plays a strategic role in mobilizing collective action for our oceans ahead of the UN Ocean Conference.'
Add some effective interactive web design, and the campaign becomes an engaging experience and a powerful call to action aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14: Life Below Water. You can see the full web experience at 450yearsatsea.com.
For more of the week's news in creative branding and marketing, see the new Vitaminwater logo and the demise of McDonald's CosMc's.
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