A global sustainability campaign fronted by Lionel Messi, launched in March 2024
In 2024, KARÜN worked with Join The Planet and Lionel Messi on a global sustainability initiative. Messi became an ambassador for Join The Planet, and the first major product of that collaboration was a collectible built in the shape of his left boot.
It was not a boot to play in. It was a sculpture, made from recycled materials recovered around the world: nylon from discarded fishing nets, polypropylene from ropes and bottle caps, recycled fibreglass. Each piece carried a digital certificate tracing where its materials came from, and part of the proceeds went to conservation work.
The point was never to sell an object with Messi's name on it. It was to use the reach of that name to start a conversation about pollution and recovered materials.
The product existed. The way to show it did not.
Where we came in
When KARÜN began preparing the launch and the activations around it, they needed a way to present the piece physically. They came to us the way they had before: with a concept and a specific need rather than a specification.
The object was striking and valuable, and the problem was how anyone would actually encounter it. That is the part we were asked to solve.
A case that disappears around the object
We developed transparent acrylic showcases built to hold and display the collectible. Transparency mattered more than any other property: the piece had to be readable from every angle without the structure competing with it.
The result works the way a museum case works. The boot is the subject, and everything around it steps back.
The object in front. The structure out of the way.
The campaign, built to travel
Beyond the showcases, we produced the printed structural displays and campaign graphics used around the activations, carrying Messi's image and the two lines the campaign ran on: JOIN MY TEAM and JOIN THE PLANET.
These are what turned a launch into an environment. They were built to be produced repeatedly and set up in different places, across launch events, activations, retail and promotional environments, rather than as one-off pieces for a single night.
We did not make the product. We made everything around it
Join The Planet and KARÜN had built the story: Messi, his left boot, recovered fishing nets, traceability, conservation. Our job was to turn that story into something a person could stand in front of.
Acrylic display cases, custom displays, printed structural displays, campaign graphics, presentation elements. None of it was the product, and all of it was how the product was met.
Inside the campaign, not at the end of it
Nobody sent us the dimensions of a box. We were part of working out what the object needed in order to be experienced, alongside a brand and a foundation, on a project carrying one of the most recognisable names in the world.
That is the point at which a supplier becomes a partner: when the question is still open, and answering it is part of the job.
KARÜN and Join The Planet had created a powerful product and a story. Our role was to bring it into the physical world.