Campaign to End Single Use Data
Fight or Flight
Client: NetApp
When we’re no longer using apps, or laughing at memes, the data is no longer needed. It becomes waste – completely useless. But many companies keep it anyway, storing it in giant data centres all over the world.
That's a big problem because data centres consume a lot of power. In Ireland, data accounts for more than a fifth of the country’s entire electricity supply. And if most of that data is useless it means we are using all that power for nothing.
The environmental impact of this madness is huge. But businesses continue to use data once and then store it needlessly, forever. How could NetApp, which helps companies to manage their data, warn UK businesses about the true cost of data waste?
Fight or Flight worked with NetApp to reframe the issue. We borrowed the emotive language of the environmental lobby to give data waste a more provocative name: single-use data. We produced our own research, showing that two-thirds of all company data is single-use – the environmental equivalent of producing 15 billion plastic bottles.
Our campaign generated 41 pieces of earned coverage in business and national media. We told our story in an Amazon Prime documentary, took it onto the stage at London TechWeek, engaged directly with customers like Aston Martin, and also canvassed MPs and Lords at the Houses of Parliament. Thanks to our campaign, single-use data is no longer technology’s dirty secret.