Hamburg, April 2016: The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) appointed TRACK as its lead agency and immediately entrusted it with an urgent key assignment. Following a successful pitch, the Hamburg-based team was given the task of developing a comprehensive campaign to fight the global rise of poaching. This campaign was launched in April 2016.
Under the slogan “Stop Global Poaching,” the renowned, independent conservation organization made it its goal to raise more awareness about the devastating effects of wildlife poaching. One of the tasks involves conducting poaching prevention operations on the ground. Reducing the demand for wildlife products such as tiger bones and rhino horn as well as combatting illegal trafficking are also top priorities.
Illegal wildlife trade has become the world’s fourth-largest black market activity. This has led to a catastrophic decline in the numbers of certain endangered species like the rhinoceros, elephant, and tiger.
The agency team: Stefan Setzkorn (Chief Creative Officer), Christopher Barth (Executive Director Strategy), Lars Knöpke (Executive Director Client Services), and Gunnar Loeser (Creative Director) developed an attention-grabbing campaign, which featured a range of impressive visuals of endangered species accompanied by striking thought-provoking headlines. The central communications hub is a new microsite, www.stopp-wilderei-weltweit.de, which is dedicated to informing visitors about key issues and the consequences of poaching, referring users to the various options they have to make donations. In addition to the microsite, the campaign was supported by print and social media activities. A TV commercial and out-of-home promotion was launched in the second half of the year.
“People’s willingness to donate is influenced by many different reasons and motives. This campaign is the fruits of an intensive strategic analysis of what motivates people to donate and how we can address the corresponding target audiences. Illegal animal trafficking is a horrific global crime. An international response is required to fight it – and only WWF is in the position to deliver it. We are proud to be supporting WWF with our campaign in the fight against poaching,” commented Stefan Setzkorn, TRACK’S Chief Creative Officer.
WWF was founded in 1961 in Switzerland as an international umbrella organization. The German branch was founded in 1963. The independent, global network is active in over 100 countries and has over 90 offices in 40 countries. Five million people support WWF around the world. In Germany, 480,000 people supported the organization with their donations last year alone.
