Heaven&Hell Shanghai + Taobao launch animated film to support Wild Panda Habitat Conservation
On January 17th, China’s Giant Panda Conservation Day, Taobao, China’s largest E-commerce shopping platform, and ad agency Heaven&Hell Shanghai launched an animated short film titled “TaoTao’s Story”. The film, in the form of traditional Chinese shadow puppetry, tells the legend story of TaoTao, the world’s first wild-trained and successfully rewilded panda. It calls for public to pay attention to and support the habitat construction of wild giant pandas.
TaoTao is a giant panda that was adopted for life by Taobao in 2012. After its successful rewilding, recently found in the feces of the panda, TaoTao may have become a “grandfather”, which is a milestone event of China’s wild panda protection program and also a big event for Taobao.
Coinciding with China’s Giant Panda Conservation Day, Taobao hoped to leverage its widespread popularity and brand recognition to make more people konw the legendary story of TaoTao. And the brand also wanted to call for public awareness of the current status of TaoTao and the 1,900 other wild giant pandas like it, contributing to the cause of their habitat construction.
Heaven&Hell was invited to be the creative agency for this campaign. To quickly introduce everyone to TaoTao’s hometown Sichuan, the creative team used Sichuan’s most representative intangible cultural heritage art form “shadow puppetry” to create the story of TaoTao.
Based on TaoTao’s journey from being wild-trained by its mother (CaoCao) for two years, to its successful rewilding, adapting to nature, having its descendant, and eventually becoming a legend after 13 years, the creative team used ten key moments to narrate TaoTao’s story.
In addition to the visual storytelling through shadow puppetry, the creative team also invited Mr. Zhuying Xiong, the storyteller of the background music for the “Headless Monk” segment in the popular Chinese game “Black Myth: Wukong”, to sing the story of TaoTao.
In this campaign, in addition to the animated short film, Taobao also launched 10 posters in the subway stations with the highest passenger traffic in Sichuan, Hangzhou and so on, China. The initiative aimed to let more young people in cities see and get to know TaoTao, and to encourage everyone to support the habitat construction for wild giant pandas.
To enhance the attraction and likability of the campaign, Heaven&Hell also designed limited-edition, super-cute plush toys of TaoTao. This allowed more people not only to see TaoTao but also to wear it on their bodies.
Credits
Client: Taobao
Creative Agency: Heaven&Hell Shanghai
Creative Director: Danny Li, Sihan Jin
Copywriter: Zhigang Wen
Art Director: Xinyi Wu
Designer: Yaqian Hu, Weiyi Li
Lyrics: Danny Li, Zhigang Wen
Storyteller: ZhuYing Xiong
Account Manager: Sanako Zhang
Illustrator: Illusion CGI Studio
Animation: Illusion CGI Studio
