Tyke2014

Background

PETA launched one of its largest ever undertakings: an online petition to achieve a ban on wild animals in circuses. Developed and realised by Hamburg agency Grabarz & Partner, a documentary film entitled Tyke2014 focuses the spotlight on the systemic cruelty to animals in circuses. At the same time, a broad campaign will draw attention to one of the largest petitions that has ever existed for the protection of animals.

PETA intends to reach an ambitious goal by 2014: 500,000 names are required in the online petition to demonstrate the clear will of the people to the federal government.

'There has been no improvement in the situation for wild animals in circuses over the past 20 years,' says Harald Ullmann, vice chairman of PETA Germany. 'We are appealing to everyone who cares about animals to sign the online petition and work with PETA to achieve a ban on wild animals.'

Idea

At the heart of the campaign is Tyke2014, a 15-minute documentary. A wide range of advertising is being used to promote the landing page, where people can watch the film and add their name to the petition (www.tyke2014.com). These measures include cinema trailers, pre-roll commercials, cinema posters, banners and flying banners, stencils and taxi advertising. Similarly, at a later point in time, it will be possible to buy T-shirts and jute bags featuring designs based on the campaign.

(You'll find the trailer with English subtitles here: http://youtu.be/Wbhx2WbphkU)

The campaign is named after an elephant called Tyke, who ran amok in the middle of a circus performance in Hawaii on 19 August 1994, killing the animal tamer. After escaping from the circus and charging through the city distraught for half an hour, she was finally shot dead with 86 bullets on the streets of Honolulu. To commemorate the nineteenth anniversary of Tyke's death, the film will be launched next Tuesday – at precisely 4.46 p.m., the time when she was killed. The campaign aims to collect 500,000 signatures before the twentieth anniversary in 2014.

In this documentary film, PETA Germany and Grabarz & Partner have used state-of-the-art technology to give a voice to contemporary witnesses that have never been heard before: other circus animals who saw the dramatic events unfold in Hawaii.

The greatest challenge was to create characters that could tell Tyke's story in a sensitive, emotional way without any stereotypes. To this end, the team at Grabarz & Partner first carried out intensive research, interviewing witnesses who saw the tragedy in Hawaii 19 years ago with their own eyes. In-depth studies examined animals and their specific behaviour at various ages. Only in this way was it possible to turn a chimpanzee, a zebra and a tiger into subtle, authentic characters that could tell the story of Tyke the elephant with genuine feeling and nuanced facial expressions.

The elaborate realisation of this project involved the latest technology in facial tracking without markers. Using software called faceshift, the actors playing the chimpanzee, zebra and tiger were first filmed in real time. 3D models were then converted into a rendering template to bring out individual features and a certain lifelike quality. The rendering alone (processing the final animal sequences) consumed 550 hours of computing time. The result is a group of animal eyewitnesses that are very realistic and even have a somewhat human presence: you can see them breathe and swallow, and even the smallest hairs in their coat move. At the end of the process, several prominent PETA supporters literally gave the animals a voice in the dubbing studio.

The final product is a story that will touch viewers with its carefully crafted authenticity. 'We set out to convey the heat of the topic as faithfully as possible. The footage we've used is extremely dramatic and shows the reality of what goes on behind the scenes at circuses. We present things as they are without pulling any punches. It's difficult to swallow. But it was important for us to treat this material sensitively and to keep everything authentic. In this sense, the challenge was to transfer even the smallest facial expressions of the actors to the shape of the animals, creating dialogue with the camera that is as emotional and realistic as possible,' explains Andreas Brunsch, head of digital creation at Grabarz & Partner.

Results

• More than 50,000 petition signatures in the first 48 hours.
• Until now (as of 16.1.) almost 165,000 signatures
• Nearly 500,000 visitors (Unique Users) on the website and just under 700,000 PIs
• Almost 220000 views for the video
• About 120,000 shares on Facebook. This corresponds to about 16000000 impressions.
• 17,300 search results on Google for the keyword Tyke2014
• More than 2,000 tweets with the hashtag "Tyke2014". This corresponds to more than 400,000 impressions.
• About 2,000 new donors
• Overall, this is the most successful campaign ever start for Peta.