The Empathy Experiment
International Tiger Project
Issue 56 | September 2020
Agency
Leo Burnett Sydney
Creative Team
Leo Burnett Chief Creative Officer Jason Williams Executive Creative Directors Andy Fergusson, Grant McAloon, Vince Lagana Creative Directors Ian Broekhuizen, Malcolm Caldwell Senior Art Director Sharon Edmondston Senior Copywriter Misha McDonald
Production Team
Senior Broadcast Producer Tim Pietranski BTS Content Shooter Tommy Thoms Production Finch
Other Credits
Chief Client Partner Belinda Drew Senior Business Director Samuel MacDonnell Connections Strategist Matt Chisholm PR Director Sarah Rhodes Client ITP Founder & President Leif Cocks Philanthropy Manager Marnie Frost Development Director Troy Kenah
Date
April 2020
Background
The International Tiger Project is a notfor- profit organisation dedicated to the protection of tigers and the rainforests within which they live.
Across the globe, the number of tigers in the wild has shrunk to fewer than 3,000.
With so many charities fighting for Australians’ attention, especially after the country’s recent bushfire disaster and the Covid-19 pandemic, it was increasingly difficult to get Aussies to connect with the tiger’s plight to raise donations.
Idea
The Empathy Experiment used the divisive medium of hypnosis to try and get viewers to understand what it’s like to be a hunted tiger in the wild. Six volunteers were induced into a deep state of hypnosis and made to believe they were a family of tigers.
One woman was led to believe she was the mother of five cubs. Under hypnosis she believed she had been trapped in a snare.
Her distress was real.
Our Thoughts
This four-minute film is startling in that the six participants really were tigers for a while.
And the anguish and panic of the ‘mother’ is both credible and convincing.
The problem, of course, is that under cover of Covid-19, poaching has doubled in India There are no tourists to deter hunters.
Added to that, incomes have collapsed so indigenous peoples may feel they have no alternatives. The animals themselves have been fooled into wandering into unsafe areas because there are fewer humans there. It seems coronavirus could be responsible for more than one extinction.