India – To spotlight its dedication to sustainability, Britannia has teamed up with creative agency Talented for a unique campaign where nature takes centre stage, shaping the brand’s outdoor advertising in a new way.
Titled ‘Nature Shapes Britannia,’ the out-of-home (OOH) campaign features billboards that physically conform to the shape of nearby trees, creating a powerful visual and metaphorical statement about how one of India’s largest organisations adapts to nature, rather than forcing nature to adapt to it.
Each of Britannia’s billboards is paired with a message highlighting the brand’s sustainability efforts across key areas, including plastic neutrality, waste management, circular economy, water stewardship, and energy management. The surrounding trees dictate the design and typography, causing the brand name to bend, curve, or compress based on their shape.
For Britannia, this approach to the campaign reflects the flexible, adaptive mindset that large brands must adopt to drive real progress in sustainability.
Amit Doshi, chief marketing officer at Britannia, shared, “Britannia has been committed to being a sustainable organisation with a deep commitment towards its strategic ESG pillars. Through the years, we’ve learnt that sustainability needs a conscious, adaptive, flexible approach. This initiative is an embodiment of this flexible approach, with nature shaping ‘Britannia,’ quite literally. The team ensured even the material used for the hoardings was 100% cotton and biodegradable, ensuring we stay committed to the cause we are delivering.”
The campaign’s creative agency, Talented, collaborated with multiple media partners to execute a unique strategy that defied the usual billboard selection process. Since media agencies don’t maintain data on billboards partially covered by trees in major Indian cities, the team also conducted on-ground surveys to handpick suitable locations.
Speaking on the campaign, Aabhaas Shreshtha, founding member and creative at Talented, explained, “Nature shapes Britannia, and so it was natural for us to want nature to shape its advertising as well. And so began our mission to find ‘rare trees with billboards right next to them.’ After a long and rigorous recce-ing with our media partners, we studied the contours of each tree, understood its growth and coverage, and designed around them. Large-scale sustainability charters are extremely consequential in the bigger picture but can feel distant. By partnering with nature around us to tell the story, Britannia is bridging that gap.”
Sonia Lal, partner at Coral Media, added, “We were pleasantly surprised when we were briefed on the current campaign ask and honestly feel incredibly proud to support Britannia’s initiative, which is not just a wonderful way to show the impact of the brand’s sustainability initiatives but also a signal from one of the country’s long-standing advertisers to other advertisers and media owners to think differently. Not everything great must come at the cost of nature.”
The ‘Nature Shapes Britannia’ OOH campaign launched across four cities—Hyderabad, Kolkata, Meerut, and Pune—in collaboration with various tree species, including Nag Kesar, Aam, Neem, and Peepal.