Prada: Sea Beyond

Challenge

A vital component of Prada’s heritage, nylon is an emblem of the brand’s DNA. 1% of proceeds from the Prada Re-Nylon for SEA BEYOND Collection benefit SEA BEYOND, the project by Prada Group conducted in partnership with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO since 2019 to raise awareness of sustainability and ocean preservation.

In the fourth collaboration between of Prada and National Geographic, the objective was to create a strong connection between the Prada Re-Nylon initiative and the SEA BEYOND educational project through a series of documentary films featuring A-list talent and SEA BEYONDers – Goodwill Ambassadors of the project.

Strategic Solution

SEA BEYOND project aims to raise awareness of ocean preservation, contributing to the progress of ocean education on a global scale through a series of training initiatives for younger generations.

The primary objective of this campaign was to shine a light – with even more of a documentary lens than previous years – on the key beneficiaries of SEA BEYOND initiatives: the youth.

Brand:

Entered by:

National Geographic Creative Works logo white

Additional objectives included:

Supporting and presenting the Prada Re-Nylon Collection.
Demonstrating the impactful connection between Prada Re-Nylon and SEA BEYOND initiatives

Based on previous campaigns’ learnings, we know that a documentary short-film format – featuring Prada ambassadors – attracts editorial interest, increasing reach by gaining earned media.

Furthermore, working with subject matter experts via the SEA BEYOND Goodwill Ambassadors incorporates authenticity and vast knowledge of the program’s benefits.

Content Solution

One line from Prada Ambassador Benedict Cumberbatch summarizes the contents’ objective: “When you spend time in nature, you feel a natural urge to project it.”

To explore the positive impact of the Prada Re-Nylon initiative on communities and habitats around the world, Prada collaborated for the fourth year with storytelling partner National Geographic on two documentary films spanning from Hawai’i to Japan. The works feature actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Letitia Wright, weaving together narratives of film and image, and SEA BEYONDers in their natural environments telling their stories. In 2026, we have chosen the two locations that are unique, are inspiring to National Geographic audiences, and show demonstrable actions via active SEA BEYOND initiatives.

For each account, we also produced captivating photography by National Geographic Photographer Ami Vitale, exquisitely styled and shot in keeping with the production values of National Geographic and the luxury quality associated with Prada. Prada ambassadors Benedict and Letitia, as well Titouan Bernicot and Elisabetta Zavoli, both SEA BEYOND Goodwill Ambassadors and National Geographic Explorers, were a powerful combination featured across content to ensure the stories were told by respected and engaging voices.

In Hawai’i, Letitia travels to the coast of Oahu which is home to an extraordinary diversity of marine life: nearly a quarter of its marine species are unique to these waters and cannot be found anywhere else on Earth. Letitia investigates Oahu’s rich ecology alongside SEA BEYONDer Titouan Bernicot, Founder of Coral Gardener and Kapono Ciotti, Director, Pacific American Foundation and Blue Schools Partner. Olena Silva, a student at Blue Schools, shares her reciprocal relationship with the sea as she learns to become a future steward of the ocean.

For the Japan content, Benedict meets with SEA BEYONDer Elisabetta Zavoli, photojournalist and award-winning documentary photographer – literally diving beneath the surface to explore the uniquely rich underwater environment of the Izu Peninsula. We also learn from the experiences of Mari Ito, a graduate of the Sakana-Kun Exploration Team, and meet the renowned Japanese ichthyologist, professor, and artist Sakana-Kun.

The content produced was featured on a bespoke dedicated content hub on nationalgeographic.com, and TikTok, Instagram Reels and Stories, and Facebook Video and Link Posts each had dedicated creative and strategy vs. simply cut downs of the main videos.

Media/Content Amplification Solution

Prada worked with National Geographic once again due to our credibility with natural history content, the premium storytelling capability of the CreativeWorks team, and the media teams’ ability to efficiently and effectively deliver branded content engagement on nationalgeographic.com at scale.

The year four media plan included high quality placements as well as known traffic and engagement drivers with the aim of increasing reach into younger audiences.

The dedicated ‘SEA BEYOND’ hub on nationalgeographic.com houses the two video articles and stunning photo galleries.

In the most recent campaign instalment (Year 3), TikTok’s bespoke creative was 3X more effective than benchmark, demonstrating message resonance with a younger audience in-line with campaign objectives. For this dedicated TikTok campaign, with the unique “did you know” edits and full-length video assets, we planned organic posts targeting for sustainability interest and to a younger demographic.

Using Instagram multi-media carousels, we created a slideshow containing video footage, as well as Hedcard images using a short burst of text to capture readers’ attention. Instagram Stories and Reels were used as they consistently drive high volume and engagement. For the first time in the partnership, we also leveraged interactive Instagram Story Polls.

Dark Facebook ads used a combination of 30” hero cutdown videos and link posts to drive traffic to the site. We used specific interest-based targeting tactics including ocean conservation, environmental issues, luxury, and the Prada brand.

YouTube hosted the full-length hero videos on our National Geographic brand channel, reaching a potential 24.4M subscribers. This audience, paired with additional amplification through in-stream ads, allowed us to target both subscribers and wider YouTube audiences with similar interests as used in the dark social placements.

The sheer volume of creative assets supplied, all built using previous campaign performance learnings, meant we were able to consistently optimise for effectiveness and efficiencies during the live campaign. Additionally, Prada issued a press release about the campaign to further extend audience reach.

Total views across both campaign videos on YouTube.

Total social media engagements, including 80k via Instagram Story Polls.

Total number of students worldwide reached by SEA BEYOND initiatives on ocean literacy.

Results

The strategic approach to the campaign content – leaning more heavily into documentary-style short films featuring A-list talent and SEA BEYONDers – proved successful from campaign launch. Early earned media coverage included prominent publications WWD, The Cut, Esquire, and more.

Paid media performance exceeded expectations across all KPIs, with clicks at 5x the estimate and page views at 10x the forecast, driven by dark paid social posts which we optimised toward based on previous campaign learnings. We also over-delivered across engagements (278%), video views (135%), and video complete (180%), demonstrating strong relevance of the content across audiences.

Instagram Story Polls, a new tactic for the 2026 campaign, delivered particularly strong engagement levels, contributing an additional 80K engagements out of the overall 935k.

Ongoing optimisation across creative messaging and imagery continued to improve click-through efficiency and conversion to page views; specifically, Meta-mix link ads were optimised to drive page views. Japan content’s top-performing Meta-mix link ad achieved a CTR of 1.85%, well above the National Geographic benchmark of 0.8%. Hawai’i’s Meta-Mix link ad on Instagram tracked the highest CTR at 4%.

On YouTube, the Japan upload generated 2M impressions and nearly 1.3M video views, while Hawai’i received 2.4M impressions and 1.6M video views. The YouTube non-skip 15” pre-roll driving to the Hawai’i video article achieved an 89% VCR, above National Geographic’s 85% benchmark.

To-date, SEA BEYOND initiatives have reached over 38,000 students worldwide, focusing on ocean literacy and ocean preservation.