In anticipation of the arrival of NASA’s Perseverance Rover on Mars on 18 February, Fridays For Future has unveiled “1%”, a satirical tourism ad for Mars, to awaken the 99 per cent of humans who will have to stay on Earth.

Why are we spending billions to go to Mars when we can use these funds to rebuild the Earth?

This is the central argument of Fridays For Future’s new commercial, which illuminates the irony that government-funded space programs and the world’s ultra-wealthy 1 per cent are laser-focused on Mars—and yet, 99 per cent of humans will never get to Mars. They will have to stay on Earth.

“Let’s face it, living on Earth isn’t so cool right now,” Fridays For Future writes.

“The desire to escape to a kind of Eden—to discover unexplored lands and rebuild a better world—is so strong right now. ‘What if we run away from Earth and head to Mars?’ seems to be the fantasy, as people’s mission to colonise the Red Planet is gaining momentum, and billions upon billions of dollars are being spent.”

On 18 February, NASA’s Perseverance rover is touching down on Mars, joining the U.A.E.’s Hope orbiter and China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter and rover duo, which also just arrived. Billionaire Elon Musk is “highly confident” that SpaceX will land humans on Mars by 2026.

“This sounds like good news. But it’s only good news for those who are billionaires, or world leaders. Everybody else is simply out of luck,” Fridays For Future says.

Created by FRED & FARID Los Angeles for Fridays For Future, Greta Thunberg’s global climate change movement, the film illuminates the irony of this fact. Aptly named “1%,” the film is a satirical tourism ad for Mars.

It excites viewers about the prospect of escaping to the Red Planet where there is “no war, no criminality, no pandemics, and no pollution”—only later to reveal the startling aforementioned truth, and a call-to-action, with the line: “And for the 99% of humans who will stay on Earth, we’d better fix climate change.”

Fridays for Future reminds us: “no one is swooping in to save us… we must save ourselves. We’d better fix climate change, we’d better take action, now. We simply have no choice”.

The ad marks the third collaboration between FRED & FARID Los Angeles and Fridays For Future.

After raising awareness about the effects of climate change via their first two initiatives (“House on Fire” and “If You Don’t Believe In Global Warming, How About Local Warming?”), the organisations have create a film that aims to motivate people to action, with a message they are unable to ignore.

The film launches on 18 February 2021, the same day that NASA’s highly-anticipated Perseverance rover is touching down on Mars.

Fridays For Future said: “We wanted to highlight pure nonsense. Government-funded space programs and the world’s ultra-wealthy 1 per cent are laser focused on Mars (NASA’s Perseverance Rover alone cost $2.7 billion for development, launch, operations and analysis)—and yet, most humans will never get a chance to visit or live on Mars.

“This is not due to a lack of resources—but the fact that our global systems don’t care about us—and refuse to take equitable action.

“With 99 per cent of the world’s population remaining on Earth, it’s imperative that we fix the climate change that’s destroying our home planet. We’d better fix climate change now. We simply have no choice.”

FRED & FARID Los Angeles added: “We aimed to create a film in a retro-futuristic and propaganda genre that would be both provocative and impactful to highlight shocking data.”

Credits for the campaign are as follows:

Agency : FRED & FARID Los Angeles

Client: Fridays For Future

Title of ad: 1%

Chief creative officers: Fred & Farid

Brand supervisor: Joe Hobbs & Katharina Maier

Agency supervisor: Jules Chaffiotte

Creative director: Nicolas Bethier

Copywriter: Hilary Smith

Agency producers: Amanda Van Caneghem, Andy Caramanzana

PR: Jalila Levesque

Colorist: Axel Delwarte, Paul Murgier

Music and audio post-production: Squeak E Clean Studios

Composer: Justin Hori

Sound design: Kennon Ward + Stuart St. Vincent Welch

Senior mix engineer: Drew Fischer

Senior producer: Danielle Toporoff