Context:

Wild animal trafficking in Brazil has seen a tremendous increase in recent years.

Ampara is the largest and most important animal protection and defense organization in Brazil, recognized by the Brazilian Ministry of Justice as a OSCIP (Civil Society Organization of Public Interest).

Its goal is to change society by taking action to support, educate, and raise awareness about animal rights.

Brief:

Come up with an original idea to help alleviate the problem of wild animal trafficking.

Challenge:

Wild animals are popular! They make great content. Many people spend countless hours on TikTok and Instagram liking and sharing videos and photos of wild animals. A large portion of which includes content of wildlife that has been humanized or raised as pets.

Objectives:

Raise awareness of the issue

Help Ampara play a part in the reduction of animal trafficking

Most advertising is about increasing purchase intent––but our goal was the exact opposite.

To decrease people’s willingness to buy trafficked wildlife, first we had to verify the connection between social media posts and the trafficking market itself (a two-year data collection and analysis undertaking).

Then we had to:

Call attention to the problem

Reset the social media algorithm that was fueling the increase

Introducing The Wild Algorithm (Reset)

We launched a data-driven social-first campaign, highlighting the cause-and-effect, and encouraging people to reset their social algorithms with a 4-step process, to be part of the solution.

An exhibition in São Paulo, showing trafficked animal images on phones trapped in trafficking cages, drove interest in the issue and offered sharable content.

Then, on National Animals Day, we launched the Wild Algorithm Reset, enlisting some of Brazil’s biggest influencers to spread the simple process to effectively reset the problematic algorithm.

We wanted to find out whether wild animals on social media were having any kind of measurable effect on the illegal trafficking market, and we needed the data to prove it.

We started by scouring Instagram and TikTok for content that featured domesticated wild animals, and tracked engagement they generated over two years.

Then we used Google to access the level of demand for wild animals, decoding search trends and calculating precise day-by-day measures.

The connection between social media and trafficking was clear and indisputable. Amongst other key data points, 37% of searches for monkey purchases and 18% of searches for snake purchases were directly generated by Instagram content.

Once we firmly established the connection, we needed to

1.) call attention to the problem

2.) reset the algorithm fueling this increase in trafficking

Most advertising is about increasing purchase intent––our goal was the exact opposite.

To make a splash and gain immediate attention, we started with an exhibition in one of São Paulo’s busiest areas, where we installed real cages used by traffickers with mobile phones trapped inside that showed wild animals in social media posts. Then, on National Animals Day, we launched the Wild Algorithm Reset with the help of some of Brazil’s biggest influencers across numerous verticals, including Sabrina Sato, Thalia Ayala, João Vincente De Castro, and others. They reached out to their followers to spread the word about a simple process that anyone could use to effectively reset the problematic algorithm.

Total campaign engagement was 111.7K.

Earned media results include:

111.3M potential impressions for the overall campaign in March 2024, including earned media mentions (16.2M), broadcast (TV Cultura and Rede Global: 27.1M) and influencers reach on Instagram

(68M). Languages included are English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Millions of people took part in the Wild Algorithm Reset, and the results were real and powerful:

12.1 million people reeducated their algorithms

111 million total impressions

A twofold increase in conversations and mentions related to animal trafficking in Brazil

A significant global reduction in searches for purchasing intent: 15% less for monkeys, 6% less for parrots, and 5% less for snakes

A 12% decrease in engagement with social media videos featuring wild animals on Instagram

Heightened public and political awareness led to a series of law enforcement actions