African elephants could be extinct in the wild within two decades. 33,000 elephants are slaughtered every year, one every 15 minutes. Only 425,000 remain. While most conservation groups focus on protecting animals from poaching, WildAid works to reduce global demand for wildlife products by converting consumers into conservationists and strengthening enforcement. While international trade in ivory is already banned, many countries including the US, China, Hong Kong, UK and most of the EU have not outlawed domestic trade, giving illegal ivory a screen to hide behind. This fuels demand, prices and so poaching. We set ourselves the goal to make 2016 the year trade was stopped completely, the year more elephants were born than slaughtered, the year we saved the elephant from extinction. We needed to find a way to urgently mobilise support, and with zero media spend, ensure global cultural, economic, political and legal change before it’s too late.

"NB: No paid for media/seeding/celebrity endorsement Launch

2/12/16: We hijacked social conversation around Chinese New Year – asking the world to #JoinTheHerd and save the elephant from extinction in 2016, empowering people with a elephant/human meme tool, taking over social feeds globally. Influencers tweeted, Chinese celebrities lead Weibo chat, African hip-hop star Alikiba released a music video watched by millions.

3/3/16: On World Book/Wildlife Day, we launched a children’s eBook/animation retelling the Chinese zodiac story including Elephant

Mobilisation

We built momentum through celebrity/influencer outreach, encouraging NGOs to #JoinTheHerd, snowballing the campaign.

w/c 4/25/16: as virtual hosts of the inaugural Giants Club Summit and the Ivory Burn, we invited the world to witness the death of ivory trade live streaming, running a social engagement newsroom, broadcasting into China on NetEase, promoted on the biggest billboard in the world.

Throughout, we engaged global media, constantly building our audience and so the Herd.