The Endangered Song: the first song made to go extinct unless it’s

reproduced.

The Endangered Song is a social influencer campaign rooted in the

little-known fact that there are only 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild.

On Earth Day, 400 carefully chosen social influencers--among them

were actors, activists, musicians, conservationists, bloggers, and journalists--received a rare record in the mail with one song on it, titled “Sumatran Tiger.” The record is one of only 400 custom lathe-cut records, manufactured to degrade after a certain

amount of plays. There were no digital copies of the song in existence.

The social influencers were asked to digitize the song and reproduce

it online, sharing the song and the little-known fact on social media platforms, using hastags #endangeredsong and #sumatrantigers to tag links to the song.

The main objectives were to showcase the Smithsonian’s National Zoo

as more than just a zoo, but a leader in wildlife preservation, and to raise awareness for the 400 remaining tigers.

The challenge during this project was managing all the parties involved--the

client, the band’s record company, the music production company, the band’s manager, the band, and our own PR and account team--and keeping them all on the same page.

On the day of the campaign we posted a Making Of video on YouTube

and sent it to various publications. As result, there were over 500 online press release posts including articles from major publications such as Rolling Stone, Billboard, Yahoo, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.

The channels that worked together were direct mail, audio, and digital platforms, which were all interconnected. We started the song off as a direct mail piece (7 inch records) and asked social influencers to digitize the song, saving it from extinction. We also asked the social influencers to “breed” the song and our message, across all social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Soundcloud, and other media outlets. Throughout all platforms, the hashtags #SumatranTiger and #EndangeredSong tied all of the media together.

Within the first 5 minutes of the campaign,

one version of the song was digitized. Within the first 5 hours, more than 30 different influencers had uploaded their version on Soundcloud, accounting for more than 25,000 plays on that site alone. The hashtags #EndangeredSong and #SumatranTiger were used over a million times total (and counting) across social media platforms. And there were over 500 online press release posts including articles from major publications such as Rolling Stone, Billboard, Yahoo, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. The comments on all posts were overwhelmingly positive.