Earth Hour: It’s the campaign that put the smirk on Todd Sampson’s face, and it made a fair few people turn their lights off for an hour in March too. In fact, households and buildings across 128 countries flicked the switch to darkness for 60 minutes last year to have a think about how we could be more environmentally responsible.

Now in its fifth year, Earth Hour is still spreading even further across the globe, but this year it’s looking to go beyond 60 minutes, and spur a year-round change in the way people think about energy use.

“This year, we’re inviting people to go beyond the hour, we’re asking them to do more on a day to day basis,” Earth Hour’s global brand director Liz Potter tells Marketing magazine. “The logo has been redesigned, it now has 60+ on it, and there is a new TV campaign.”

While it’s always a struggle to keep an idea fresh every year, Potter says interest is still growing, and it often comes from surprising sources.

“We started in Sydney in 2007, we’re now in 128 countries,” she says. “We have new countries coming on just in the last couple of days. Nigeria, Venezuala; the kind of territories we never imagined. We just heard Swaziland will also be taking part, and that came from a 15-year-old boy who contacted us to see how he could help."

Potter says the hour has been enough to already inspire change by some businesses.

“I think people are changing and businesses are changing,” she says. “We’ve heard about many companies who are changing their light systems, like PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Westpac; every night their lights go off.”