Pigeon Air Patrol - Lost Boys / DigitasLBi

In March 2016, I was approached by Digitas LBi to work on Pigeon Air Patrol, as part of the Lost Boys team.

This was a small activation designed to raise awareness and drive conversation around London's air pollution problem: We strapped air pollution sensors to pigeons who took readings as they flew around London, and tweeting the results as they went.

Alongside this Twitter users could tweet their location within London for an up to date reading of pollution in their area, ostensibly from the pigeons but mostly using data from base stations connected to a pollution monitoring app from Plume Labs, a French startup.

I was responsible for writing and managing the content calendar for the week-long activation, along with responding in real-time to any queries, comments, etc. from the public, which turned out to be a much bigger job than anticipated, as the activity was picked up by national and international new agencies.

In fact, over the course of a 5-day activation period, Pigeon Air Patrol was mentioned in over 2,000 news stories globally (including The Guardian, the Evening Standard, TechCrunch, Discovery Channel, NPR, Washington Post, CNN, Engadget, ABC Australia, Newsweek, TechRadar, The Verge, BBC News, BBC Radio, New Scientist, Campaign, Marketing, The Drum, Sky News, CBS, Al Jazeera and, crucially, Newsround).

And in the same five days there were over 40,000 #PigeonAir mentions, resulting in 667 million Twitter impressions. More than 3,000 people in London asked about the air quality in their area, and over 18,000 people went to the Pigeon Air website for more information.