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Gorilla

International Fund for Animal Welfare

Issue 10 | March 2009

Agency

RAPP London

Creative Team

Paul Turner ; Magnus Thorne

Production Team

2am - Production Company; Harry Dwyer - Director; James Sorton - Producer

Other Credits

Rosa Argent - Client

Date

August 2008

Background

IFAW is an animal and conservation charity in the UK, which works to protect critically endangered species like the gorilla. They needed to create awareness of their work and the urgency of the situation but with no budget at all.

Idea

The creative idea was to remake one of the most famous and best loved ads of recent times, and put a very serious twist on it. Everyone loves the drumming gorilla, and the agency hoped to convert some of that good will towards protecting his big brothers out in the wild. By remaking the ad without the gorilla, the viewer is left with a silent, cold and sombre film that dramatises the sad fact that a world without gorillas isn’t far off. The viral nature of the film also worked perfectly for IFAW, who have no money to spend on media.

Results

To be successful, the film needed to be passed on and on and on, raising as much free publicity for IFAW as possible, and driving people to their site to find out more. Although hard to track, the video has generated more than 20,000 YouTube views, with the film also being taken and seeded on a number of industry and public news, blogging and general interest sites, as well as being covered by the national media. IFAW received a huge amount of positive feedback as well as increased traffic to their website.

Our Thoughts

Cadbury’s ‘Gorilla’ is the most viewed ad ever on YouTube and to take advantage of it in this way is neat. If it helps raise the money to save the life of just one silverback in Ruwenzori then it will have been a success. My only caveat is this would have been more powerful if the boys had been a bit quicker out with it. If it had started running seven or eight months ago.

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