• by Danielle Oster , March 4, 2025

As Los Angeles recovers from the devastating impact of recent wildfires, air quality is top of mind.

While the wildfires’ impact on the outdoors is widely recognized, fewer people consider the impact on indoor air quality in the area. But one billboard in Studio City reading  “We’re giving away clean air” is offering complimentary samples of a product that purports to address the issue.

The campaign is from Paris-based biotech startup Neoplants, which is providing samples of its Power Drops product to L.A. residents. Neoplants claims the product, developed over the course of some six years, harnesses the power of microorganisms to supercharge houseplants to remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs) -- or gaseous compounds in the air that can be harmful to human and environmental health. The drops are said to improve plants’ air-purifying capabilities by 30x.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, indoor air can be two to five times as polluted as outdoor air. “Traditional HEPA filters can’t filter out VOCs -- they’re too small,” Neoplants’ CEO Patrick Torbey told Marketing Daily.

Power Drops’ formula contains two separate species of bacteria Neoplants said can capture and remove specific types of VOCs that are among the airborne chemicals which can be emitted by building materials, paints, furniture, deodorants,  aerosol sprays, and cleaning products, which negatively contribute to indoor air quality.

The company developed the product by naturally boosting the ability of these bacteria over the course of five to six years “to absorb VOCs and turn them into harmless organic compounds, like sugar, amino acids and lipids.”

A team of around 20 scientists put the microorganisms  “through a series of challenges to evolve them in a certain way to eat these pollutants more quickly, boosting their evolution toward that goal,” Torbey said, calling the process “boot camp for bacteria,” which resulted in “bacterial strains that are super efficient at absorbing these pollutants.”

Torbey explained that Neoplants had planned a promotional campaign launch in Los Angeles for January, due to the high number of houseplant owners and general appreciation for nature in the area. Instead, he arrived the day after wildfires upended everyday life in the city. Given the situation, Neoplants cancelled the event, and after a few days decided to pivot to a campaign offering free samples to help purify resident’s indoor air in the aftermath of the blaze.

“I’m originally from Lebanon, and experienced firsthand what it is like for a city to be destroyed. Seeing L.A. in that state reminded me of Beirut,” Torbey said. “I thought, ‘We just created a product that can drastically help with health and healing efforts'... and wanted to share this to be part of the solution.”

So the brand pivoted within a few days to a campaign to offer its product to Los Angeles residents for free.

The first questions was whether that was possible. “It took time to drag down the cost of production to have products we could ship to everyone without having cash issues,” Torbey explained.

To get the word out, the company launched the billboard in conjunction with a Clean Air LA event, along with supporting influencer marketing initiatives. The brand partnered with creative agency partner Martine Studio to bring the billboard to life, and The Know Who’s on influencer marketing.

Neoplants’ Los Angeles billboard will run through the end of March, with the accompanying giveaway campaign continuing as long as supply allows, the brand said.