The Rhino Stamp Project

Background

There were just 29,000 rhinos left in the world. South Africa was home to 75% of them.

In parts of Asia, their horns sold on the black market for more than $60,000 per kilogram, to be ground and used as a hypothetical cure for cancer or as a vitality tonic for the wealthy.

Protecting these animals, one of South Africa’s national symbols, was a massive challenge.

Despite the petitions and the awareness campaigns, the numbers of rhinos being killed continued to increase.

The Stop Rhino Poaching organisation wanted to find a way to talk directly to those responsible for creating the demand and show them what they were doing.

Idea

The postage stamp was re-invented as a new medium to get the message across to wealthy individuals in Asia.

Instead of a pretty picture, however, the stamps showed pictures of the carnage involved. Depending on where it was to be mailed to, each stamp carried a message in Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai reading: “Say no to rhino horn.”

As well as using Mail to reach those people who created the demand for rhino horn, the stamps were also used to create posters that were put up across South Africa, inviting anyone who ever wrote a letter to China, Vietnam or Thailand to use them on every letter.

Stamp books were created as inserts and as DM pieces to spread awareness, encourage publicity and use of the stamps. 

Results

There was an explosion on twitter of people tweeting about the stamps. The tweets were steady for over a month. (targeted countries included)

There was a presence in national press, national radio and global online.

Online (internet) earned media was through out the world. It was blogged and posted in places as far away as Australia and Brazil the furthest points east and west of South Africa.

In our first week of the campaign’s launch the website had over 60000 visitors, most from the countries targeted.

The most exciting part of the campaign’s results is the agency is currently work- shopping with an American company based in New York to set up a Stop Rhino Poaching Frontend there to channel offshore donations towards the fight against rhino poaching in South Africa. 

Our Thoughts

At Directory we have always thought that stamps are an under-exploited medium. That said, a few advertisers have used them neatly in recent times – Jeep, for instance and, brilliantly, Haagen-Dazs through TBWA Vienna, who got the stamps to taste of ice- cream when you licked them.

The ingenious part of this campaign, though, is in how it mobilises people in one country to reach its target audience in another.

It relies on volume and I fear that far too few letters will have been posted out of South Africa to relevant addressees.

Will it shame wealthy Chinese into looking elsewhere for their aphrodisiacs and remedies? One can only hope.