‘Back Home’ won Gold in Social Purpose Use of Technology at The Drum Awards, the campaign by Joystick, addresses sustainability perception challenges for Imperial, Costa Rica’s iconic beer brand, by creating a scientific system to return confiscated seashells to their natural habitats, sparking global environmental conversation and brand recognition.
Imperial is Costa Rica’s most iconic beer—locally brewed, nationally loved, and deeply connected to the country’s beaches and biodiversity. For decades, it has positioned itself as the beer of Costa Rica, a symbol of national pride. But recently, that leadership has been challenged.
Despite being the world’s first water-positive beer (generating more water than it consumes), Imperial was being outshone in sustainability perception by global brands like Corona, which heavily invest in purpose-driven marketing in the region.
Costa Rica is a country where nature is sacred. With 6% of the world’s biodiversity packed into its tiny territory (0.03% of the surface of the Earth), environmental awareness is part of its culture. Yet few Costa Ricans knew that many of their favorite beaches used to be full of seashells—before human extraction wiped them out. This quiet disappearance was both symbolic and real.
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The creative idea behind ‘Back Home’ was to solve an overlooked flaw in an otherwise well-intentioned law. In Costa Rica, taking seashells from the beach is illegal—but once confiscated at the airport, they can’t be returned to nature unless their origin is known. The cycle of protection was incomplete.
‘Back Home’ created the missing link: a scientific classification system based on data capable of identifying seized seashells by ecosystem of origin, making it possible to legally return them to the beaches they came from.
This breakthrough turned a passive consequence of enforcement into an active tool for restoration. It combined marine biology, environmental law, and public awareness into a single creative solution—one that transcended categories and sparked institutional change.
By closing the loop, ‘Back Home’ didn’t just imagine a better system. It built one. And for the first time, thousands of confiscated seashells made their way back to the ocean.
To bring the idea to life, the first step was building a never-before-seen dataset of Costa Rican seashells. In collaboration with the University of Costa Rica, 18,500 images were collected from both coasts to feed and train an AI model capable of identifying the shells' origin. This innovation became the key to classifying the 36,000 shells seized at the airport—something previously impossible.
More than 200 volunteers used the model to sort and return the shells to their rightful coasts. The scale of execution was unprecedented: a scientific, legal, and logistical challenge made possible by a data-led solution.
To share the story, an 8-minute branded documentary was produced and distributed through earned media and influencer support. Data wasn’t just a tool—it was the trigger and the mechanism behind a national environmental restoration effort that set a new precedent for customs protocols and creative purpose.
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‘Back Home’ delivered both environmental impact and brand health improvement. All 36,000 seashells held at Costa Rica’s main airport were classified and returned to their natural habitats. The project led to a new legal protocol allowing ongoing returns—ending years of indefinite storage and closing a critical gap in environmental enforcement.
The campaign’s 8-minute documentary sparked a global conversation, generating over 5 billion earned impressions and coverage in 75+ countries. It was organically shared by scientists, journalists, influencers, and public institutions.
Imperial overachieved in all key brand metrics, especially among younger audiences. For the first time in its history, Imperial was recognized by consumers as the most sustainable brand in Costa Rica, according to a Kantar study. The project’s relevance has also reached a global stage: ‘Back Home’ was presented at the 2025 UN Ocean Conference in Nice.
A local act of restoration became a global reference in sustainability.
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‘Back Home’ was created to respond to multiple pressures: to reclaim Imperial’s leadership in sustainability, to reconnect with younger Costa Ricans, and to make the brand’s environmental purpose visible, emotional, and tangible. By literally returning seashells to their beaches, Imperial turned a forgotten environmental loss into a powerful brand act of restoration.
It’s a story only Imperial could tell—and only Costa Rica could truly feel.
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