Sea Shepherd Conservation Society: 172 KILLED WHALES

Credits & Description:

Category: Direct Response Print or Standard Outdoor, including Inserts
Advertiser: SEA SHEPHERD
Product/Service: CONSERVATION SOCIETY
Agency: LOWE GGK
Date of First Appearance: Apr 20 2011
Entrant Company: LOWE GGK, Vienna, AUSTRIA
Entry URL: www.seashepherd.org
Executive Creative Director: Dieter Pivrnec
Creative Director: Christian Bircher
Copywriter: Nikolaus Leischko
Copywriter: Alexander Rabl
Photographer: Christian Bircher
Media placement: Poster - Guerilla Placement - 20.04.2011
Describe the brief/objective of the direct campaign.
Every killed whale is one too many. Sea Shepherd is a Non-Profit-Organisation for the protection of the oceans. One operating range is the protection of the whales. Whale hunting is still illegal though various countries don't obey this law. Till March 2011 more than 172 whales were killed, many more will follow. The goal was to bring the horror of the whale killing from the ocean into the city, to get people’s awareness again and generate donations.
Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective with reference to the projected response rates and desired outcome.
We remember the 172 killed whales with a poster exhibition in the city.
The exhibition consists of 172 different and unique posters, meaning for every killed whale one poster was produced. As exhibition area various popular fences around the centre of the city were used. Though the posters were not only fixed onto the fences but instead hung onto the tips of the fences. The tips were used as harpoons. They practically replaced the harpoons. This way the vision of the harpooned whales was directly brought to the people.
Explain why the creative execution was relevant to the product or service.
99 % of the whales are painfully killed with harpoons. To dramatize the whale hunting resp. make it practically experiencable we fixed 172 different and unique posters onto various fences. Though we did not only fix them onto the fences but instead hung the posters onto the tips of the fences and used the tips of the fences as harpoons and practically brought the vision of the harpooned whales directly to the people.
Describe the results in as much detail as possible with particular reference to the RESPONSE of the target audience including deliverability statistics, response rates, click throughs, sales cost per response, relationships built and overall return on investment.
"Return of Investment" or "some quantifiable results" is in this case not the right criteria. The whale killing will go on, the world did not get any better because of this campaign. But for the amount of 1150 Euro this campaign definitely got quite some attention, gained sympathy for the concern, for Sea Shepherds efforts, donations increased, and the click rate went on a high ride. (Never mind, if anyone of the jury would like to donate another 172 posters please feel free to contact steveroest@sea-shepherd.org directly.)