2006 Marketers That Mattered
WWF-CANADA PRESIDENT Mike Russill with VP of marketing and membership Pam Davis
Photograph: Geoff George
Surrounded by 3,000 black balloons on the grounds of Toronto’s Metro Hall on a sunny November morning, Pam Davis told mayor David Miller he was hot. She was referring of course, to the WWF T-shirt he was wearing, which read “Hotter than I should be,” with the URL saveourclimate.ca on the back. Miller had stopped by WWF’s “black cloud” installation (meant to represent carbon dioxide) and spoke to the media about the federal government’s inaction on climate change.
The WWF event drew the attention of major media outlets, bloggers and comedian Rick Mercer, who rode a bicycle through the balloons and played with the samba band. Davis, WWF-Canada’s vice-president of marketing and membership, says it’s the organization’s most successful event to date.
Wait… WWF and climate change? They save tigers, don’t they? Well, that was the perception before Davis joined the organization in 2004.
At that time, people thought WWF was “all about endangered species” or they confused it with the World Wrestling Federation, Davis says.
Her mission was two-fold: reposition the brand while increasing donations at a time when revenues were flat. The result? In 2006, unaided awareness of the brand went to 29% from 11% and revenues and membership both jumped 8%. It “might not sound huge, but we’re a mature organization in a very competitive category,” says Davis.
In June 2005, WWF launched its Do Not Drill campaign. The ads, created by WWF’s agency of record FCB (now Draft FCB), feature an American big-business character who advocates drilling in oil-rich ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge). WWF-Canada and its U.S. counterpart collected thousands of signatures and the U.S. senate ultimately voted against drilling.
This year, WWF focused on climate change. A TV spot that aired in January shows world leaders descending on a suburban home. Inside, the homeowner is hosting a global warming summit. It ends with the line, “You can’t do this, but with your help WWF can.” In six months, the campaign raised $1.4 million. A microsite, saveourclimate.ca, let people who donated $20 or more post a message that drifted across the sky of an arctic landscape on the site’s home page. That effort, through FCBi, Toronto, won the public service gold prize at this month’s Digital Marketing Awards.
Davis and Bill Baker, vice-president, business director at Draft FCB, wrote about the highs and lows of developing the campaign on a Marketing blog.
“That was part of what impressed us (about the campaign),” says Pat Porth, editor of Canadian FundRaiser. “Blogs are all over the place and most of them are deadly dull, but it was a marketing blog and it was so human.” It was also an unusual undertaking for a charitable organization, adds Porth. “I don’t know anybody else in the non-profit sector that’s ever done anything quite like that.”
WWF will continue to focus its marketing efforts on climate change, since it’s an issue that “transcends every other environmental issue,” says Davis. “You can save every endangered species there is, but climate change will wipe them all out in the end.”
A new 30-second TV spot shows a young couple pushing a baby stroller down a street during a hurricane, people camping while a forest fire rages nearby, and a man washing his car while it’s submerged in flood waters. The ad, which uses the theme song to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, ends with the tag line “Ignoring global warming won’t make it go away.”
The campaign also includes a radio spot, print ads and a revamped saveourclimate.ca microsite. The site, created by WWF’s new digital agency Mighty Digital, Direct + Design, is designed to educate visitors and get them to donate. “Now that we’ve established that we work in climate change, it’s time get people to take action,” says Davis.
