Families on the verge of extinction
WWF Belgium
Issue 36 | September 2015
Agency
Famous
Creative Team
Creative Director Katrien Bottez Associate Creative Director Iwein Vandevyver Digital Creative Director Laurent Dochy Creatives Pieter Claeys, Diederik Jeangout
Date
April 2015
Background
Worldwide, there were just 3,200 tigers left in the wild. WWF needed donors urgently to help prevent this family of animals from becoming extinct.
Idea
More than 30% of the population of Belgium had names so rare they could be said to be endangered. The campaign targeted these people with names on the verge of extinction and asked them to adopt a tiger.
The mailing directed people to a website where they could find out how many (how few) people there were left with their family name.
They could also see videos of famous Belgians calling out other families.
The famous Belgians were sent a personalised shirt to show off how limited edition they really were.
Results
Within an hour of launch, the campaign had become the No.1 trending topic on Twitter. 1 in 3 Belgians were reached on social media.
The story was covered in all national media.
Within two weeks, WWF Belgium had received more donations than they normally received in a year.
Our Thoughts
This is a terrific example of how data can provide the insight that sparks off the creative idea. The big insight was how many people there are in Belgium with rare names. This triggered the creative idea of one family facing extinction could help another and led to a refreshingly different approach from the normal emotional appeal. And raised a lot more money.
Deserved an award in Creative Data, surely?