WWF Canada has unveiled its first major brand campaign in nearly a decade as it embarks on an ambitious five-year plan that includes implementing habitat-friendly renewable energy, growing climate-friendly sustainable crops and creating low-impact sustainable fisheries.
Developed by Toronto agency John St., the “We are all wildlife” campaign uses a series of out-of-home executions and a pair of video spots to highlight the unmistakable parallels between humans and nature.
Backed by the garage rock nugget “Night Time,” the 45-second ad humorously compares and contrasts the courtship and mating rituals of humans and animals. Clips include a bird puffing up its feathers and engaging in a mating dance, followed by a dapperly-dressed man dancing at a club; two women fighting followed by bighorn sheep butting heads, as well as scenes showing grizzly-on-grizzly and tortoise-on-tortoise action, birth and parents nuzzling their young.
WWF “We Are All Wildlife” from john st. on Vimeo.
As the screen fades to white, a super reading “We work hard to create life. Let’s protect it” appears on screen, followed by the “We are all wildlife slogan” and the WWF’s iconic panda mascot.
A series of out-of-home ads use a split-screen technique to compare humans and nature. One ad features images of a deeply wrinkled man’s face and rings in a tree, while another shows a bear and a human with their mouth open in an apparent show of anger.
WWF Canada president and CEO David Miller said the message behind the campaign and the organization’s new five-year plan is people and nature are “inextricably” linked.
“What we’re saying is that nature matters,” said Miller. “We’re at a moment in time when we really need to act, and WWF Canada is a very important way of ensuring that we protect nature in a way that protects and nurtures people and community. The key for us is the message resonates with our closest supporters, our partners and people who might be our supporters.”
He pointed to the overfishing of Atlantic Canada’s cod stocks in the 1990s as an example of the strong link between nature and humans. The overfishing not only pushed the species to the brink of extinction, but the subsequent collapse of the cod fishing industry pushed more than 30,000 people out of a job.
Miller described the campaign as irreverent, interesting and engaging, particularly for a traditionally weighty topic such as the environment. “I’d like people to think of us as being an innovative kind of organization,” said Miller. “And it says that to me.”
Miller joined WWF Canada in 2013 after spending seven years as Toronto mayor. Research showed he inherited an organization that was respected and liked by Canadians, but whose work was something of a mystery. “We were in an enviable position with lots of respect and awareness, but the fact they didn’t know us for what we were doing was a concern,” he said.
The overall goal of the organization’s five-year plan, said Miller, is to inspire 1 in 10 Canadians to carry out an action that is somehow meaningful to nature, an objective that he characterized as “ambitious, but realistic.”
Miller said WWF Canada is already engaging Canadians through existing programs including the Go Wild Community Grants program with Telus, The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup (led in association with the Vancouver Aquarium) and the Loblaw Water Fund.
Miller said such corporate support is “really important,” not just to the WWF’s success, but the success of the programs it is attempting to institute.
“When [Loblaws] made a commitment to source and sell 100% sustainable seafood, it transformed the market,” he said. “Our work with the people who did the fishing and processed it was far more successful because their customer is speaking the same language.”
While the “We are all wildlife” campaign was planned and executed in advance of the recent federal election and U.S. president Barack Obama’s rejection of TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline project, Miller said the current political climate means that the environment is “far more on the agenda” than it was when the Harper government was in power.
“The idea that the environment and the economy are positively linked and can work in harmony is one that the current federal government will be receptive to,” he said. “It means there is a huge opportunity over the next five years to make transformative change in a way that benefits Canadians and wildlife.”
WWF Canada’s five-year plan was inspired by the organization’s 2014 Living Planet Report, which indicated that Canadians are currently using 3.7 times their share of the earth’s available resources each year. At the same time, wildlife populations worldwide have declined by 52% over the past 40 years, a direct result of human activity.
