In the language of flowers, lupins represent “imagination” and “fantasy.” In ancient Europe, it was said that eating lupins would make you feel cheerful and stimulate your imagination. There are also theories that they were eaten as a medicinal herb, and as a snack with beer. They may have been effective at liberating the mind. Among these flowers, rose colored lupins represent “curiosity.” They can also be seen as a medium that leads to encounters with a presence that has never been seen before in a world of fantasy. However, it is not good to use too much fertilizer for these flowers because they vigorously absorb them. I personally think that it is important to input various information when it comes to stimulating your imagination. Whatever the case may be, this flower seems to give me inspiration in some way. The small butterfly looking flowers blooming together in a stick shape, which resembles a magic wand.

“Imagination” is very important for communication. Even today, people in the communication industry will often ask, “To what extent can you see things from someone else's point of view?” No matter how much information you get from an advertisement, it may be useless from the viewer's perspective, leaving them completely unmoved. From the point of view of the sender, they have a particular message they want to you to take away, so with a certain degree of control, media, including commercials, tend to repeat only the sender's thoughts. However, for people with no interest in the information at all, the message will pass right through them, and sometimes can even be seen as annoying or a nuisance. There are many people who hide or report the recommended information that is frequently displayed on websites out of frustration, and similarly while browsing the Internet and social media. It is often said that “Too much can be as bad as too little,” and an enthusiastic approach sometimes unconsciously turns into an unacceptable approach for receivers.

This tells us that it is important not only to convey your message, but also to communicate with others by grasping their feelings. Just because you want to share something does not mean that the other person will share the same enthusiasm. You should arrange topics that the target will likely be interested in, prepare enough information about the parts they will really get into, and prepare a second and third backup strategy, all while having a direct conversation to gauge their reactions. You should start by finding a point of common ground and interest in the conversation, and continue with telling what you want to say. It is not an exaggeration to say that people will finally start to listen to you. I would say it is just a very common procedure to pay close attention to the whole situation and the person's reactions in conversation, just like conversations in everyday life. There is no doubt that communication that automatically repeats and imposes the same information without thinking about the other person has a critical impact on the attention economy in this digital age. The attention economy is a concept proposed by Herbert Simon, a psychologist and economist who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1969, which says that people's “attention” is treated like “currency” in the economy. Since various tech companies represented by GAFA have emerged, digitalization has advanced, and we can measure numbers of active users, PV, and likes as data, which has contributed to the acceleration of this flow. On the other hand, as Herbert Simon said, “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” He points out that we pay less attention to each piece of information when we get too much, because it consumes our attention bit by bit. Nearly half of the NPOs who cooperated in this survey said that “it was difficult to get people to recognize and understand the issues,” and in this information society, even if you create content, it is becoming more difficult to reach the point where people can find and understand it. The approach may not even be the right in the first place...

What can we do to break out of this so-called “situation of ignored information”? First　of all, I would like to introduce the creative case of “Eurythenes plasticus,” which was launched successfully by the German branch of the WWF, an environmental conservation organization in about 100 countries around the world.

In fact, the people of Germany are said to be leading the world in waste separation. However, less than 30% of plastic is recycled, and instead of disposing of it in their country, it gets exported to Southeast Asian countries. The amount is surprisingly the third largest in the world. The countries to which plastic waste is exported are often less regulated, and the waste is simply landfilled. After that, the wind blows the waste into rivers and finally flows into the sea. The plastic waste in the ocean gradually breaks down into microplastics, and slowly falls to the bottom of the ocean. Although the microplastics dissolved in seawater are invisible to the eye, it is said that it takes 400 years to fully decompose. The WWF, which has been working on the problem of marine plastic waste, aimed to reinvigorate public attention and action on this issue that people have lost a sense of urgency for over time.

Studies of the consequences of marine plastics have shown that deep-sea creatures are already showing the effects of plastic pollution in their bodies. Surprisingly, 72% of deep-sea crustaceans were contaminated by ingested plastics. This number was a big enough to show the severity of the problem. However, they felt that the number was not powerful enough to attract the attention of a wide range of people, so they decided to promote the issue to the world as a historical discovery that everyone would want to hear. There were headlines with the title, “Discovery of a New Species of Deep-sea Creature.” They worked with deep-sea biologists to discover a new species of deep-sea creature that is contaminated with plastic, named it after the pollution, and presented it to the world. They believed that if they could jump into the special field of science and influence the taxonomic record of the Earth, it would be much more persuasive than conventional advertising campaigns, and continue to make a big impact on people through an academic approach. Whether it is a cosmic star or a new creature, when a previously unknown entity is discovered, it is sure be reported in the news and come up in conversation. If the words “contaminated with marine plastic waste” are added, the people talking about the topic would have no choice but to think about marine pollution. This way of creating spontaneous conversation and raising awareness builds a much better narrative than simple persuasion.

The new species was named “Eurythenes plasticus” after the plastics found inside them, and a scientific paper was published and reported worldwide. Shortly after, the WWF launched a campaign to collect signatures for a petition calling for a legally binding UN agreement. A total of 2.2 million signatures were submitted to the United Nations, and at the UNEA5.2 on March 2, 2022, “End Plastic Pollution: Towards an internationally legally binding instrument” was adopted and an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee was established. The campaign was started with the official publication of a scientific paper on March 5, 2020, and Eurythenes plasticus, as an official part of the taxonomic record on Earth, was engraved in history. They have also partnered with museums in Germany and around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution, to permanently display this new species, which lead to lasting appeal from an educational point of view. If the actual creature becomes a permanent exhibition in museums, people will see the undeniable reality of the situation, not just something they heard about. The permanent exhibitions have attracted more than 410,000 visitors, and is attracting great interest from schools. There is also a website called “plasticus.school,” an international educational resource, which has recorded thousands of downloads from educational institutions and other sources. Furthermore, Eurythenes plasticus was registered in the Guinness World Records as the first new species contaminated with plastic.