Animal selfies come to the rescue in WWF Japan campaign via ADK Creative One Japan/CHERRY
March 28 2019, 12:46 pm | | No Comments
WWF JAPAN wanted to propose a new solution that would allow people to think about and make donations toward environmental issues easier. The idea developed by ADK Creative One Japan/CHERRY centered on selfies, which are popular via SNS all over the world.
Japanese people have significantly low concern toward environmental issues (donations per household are 1/108 of western countries),
The concept behind this campaign is “The kind of selfie wild animals would upload, if they could ask for help”. ADK developed a new design solution combining selfies with environmental protection. The project, #ANIMAL_SELFIE, was conducted, where animals from all over the world upload photos on Instagram, shot against backgrounds of various environmental issues.
The world’s first donation system utilizing the shopping function on Instagram was also developed. It was a new donation style, selfie x donation, allowing people to donate directly from the animal uploads. The campaign spread across various media with 37 million impressions in 3 weeks, reaching 30 million. Donations were 142% up on the previous year.
Posters were also used at customs area of Haneda Airport, where illegal imports of wild animals are controlled, anime voice-over artists voluntarily uploaded their voices, a pet-insurance company showed support, many schools used these as teaching material, and the campaign even received Greenpeace approval, extending the value far beyond numbers. As a result, the selfie, a symbol of self-expression, also became a symbol for donations, lead to perception and behavior changes among the Japanese, and grew into a long-standing service.