How joga and Climax Used ‘Swamp Ass’ to Make Global Warming Personal

Climate change communication often veers toward alarmism, with harrowing images of melting ice caps and devastating forest fires. But in their latest campaign for Climax magazine, Paris-based agency joga takes a more offbeat, relatable approach. By focusing on the seemingly trivial – sweat marks, drooling dogs, and lukewarm beer – joga explores how the daily irritations brought on by rising temperatures could escalate into constant, unbearable realities.

The campaign, aptly titled ‘Personal Warming,’ sidesteps the typical grand-scale catastrophes, instead homing in on the minor inconveniences that, over time, could make your life insufferable. Through a coupling of witty visuals and deadpan humour, joga and Climax aim to reframe the climate crisis as something that directly affects everyone in surprisingly personal way. As co-founder and creative director Antoine Defaye explains, “Sometimes, making people smile is the best way to get them to act.”

With its minimalist black-and-white design and nods to retro ‘80s posters, the campaign strikes a balance between elegance and absurdity. By highlighting familiar, humorous discomforts, it invites audiences to engage with the climate conversation in a more immediate, personal, and less preachy manner. We spoke to Antoine to find out more about the work.

LBB> How did the idea for this campaign come about?

Antoine> The idea came from a moment in life that we've all experienced: the fear of getting a sweat mark on your bottom because of the heat. We thought, wait a minute, it's summer, it's hot, so it's normal. But imagine if it was this hot all the time. We'll all have swamp ass all the time. From there, we started looking at all the crazy consequences of global warming on our personal lives. That's where the ‘Personal Warming’ concept was born. 

For the campaign to see the light of day, we needed an association or media that would accept this offbeat, antipodean approach. Climax magazine proved to be the perfect partner for this project, with its tagline: 'The media hotter than the climate'.

LBB> Why use humour to tackle the idea of climate change?

Antoine> Too often, we tend to talk about serious things in a serious way. This is one of the reasons why people lose interest in the climate cause. Campaigns that are too alarmist, too moralistic... and above all too far removed from our everyday lives.

Sometimes, making people smile is the best way to get them to act. In any case, to make people realise that not to do so is to accept living in hell. Who wants to have swamp ass and their dog drooling 24/7?

LBB> What made you choose these particular consequences? 

Antoine> To get into the campaign, every situation had to be as right as it was stupid.

Swamp ass, drooling dogs, warm beer, sauna cars, people in flip-flops… We put aside a lot of situations that are real inconveniences, like overheating phone batteries, but which we felt didn't have the same humorous potential.

LBB> How did you select these visuals?

Antoine> Our DA references were a cross between 'Dads in briefs' and Magnum's 'Find your Summer'.

We wanted something elegant, a black and white that would convey the extreme heat of the moment. All of this with a minimalist, elegant layout. Like our reasoning on the background, we wanted to show that you can stage an armchair with a halo of sweat, with a polished layout.

LBB> What do you hope people will come away thinking?

Antoine> That the consequences of climate change will affect them directly and on a daily basis. 

That it's worth buying and reading Climax to hear about climate in a different way. That we can talk about serious things without taking ourselves too seriously.