Things That Go Boom: Leave the Sharks Alone

Campaign: "Cartoon strip" - Magazine advertisements
Brand: Save the Sharks campaign by Wild Aid

Client: Wild Aid

Problem: Ok, a couple of magazine ads is not going to overturn the shark-finning industry overnight. The continuous effort at targeting consumers of the product may, however. The idea is to reduce (if not stop) demand especially by sharks-fin soup eating diners. Anti-shark-finning campaigns have so far employed fear-mongering and shocking imagery of finless sharks bleeding to death on boat decks in their communications campaigns. But turning off the target market before they can get to the meat of the message or by invoking defensiveness couldn't possibly help in our cause.

Solution: For this campaign, we appealed to the softer side of the garget market by upping the cute factor of the victim. The idea was based on the insight that no one wants to eat a character they like and that preaching to (1) the young and unaware was a more effective long-term strategy than trying to convert those set in their ways and on their palate. As a result, cartoon-strip style magazine advertisements were created and placed in popular children's comic magazines as well as the RAGE pull-out in The Star (national daily) written by teenaged journalists for teenagers.

Body copy reads, Research shows that sharks are our friends. It also shows we've been eating our friends. So the next time you're at a restaurant, spread the word: Buddies don't put buddies into hot soup.