Design brief for this Internet Advertising Campaign by WWF was to design a series of related banner ads to be used on popular websites. The World Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. Their experts are active at every level-from field work to government—conserving the largest tropical rain forests, the most remote areas of our planet, and the world’s most endangered species. The WWF requires financial support from large corporations, as well as from individual people from around the world to support their global conservation efforts.
The Design Brief of this Campaign required the feel of the ads to remain serious, but not heavy-handed. Humor may be used, but the serious nature of the subject must be communicated.
This Ad Campaign was published in 2013 and it demonstrates “there are no tools that can fix extinction” featuring humans trying to fix animals in garages. Once they are gone, there is no way to bring them back. The visual considerably highlights the conclusiveness and irreversibility of extinction by making use of photos, logos, character, and interesting design elements. Therefore, it achieved great influence and thought-provocation and affected crucial attention to the these animals’ presently grim future. People hunts animals largely for clothing, food, jewelry, shelter and so on, which contributes to the lowering count of animals across the world. The images target the industries and also the hunter.
This thought-provoking & influential ad is aimed to promote the prevention of extinction as too few people are advocating for these animals. More and more species have gone extinct due to toxic smog emission, oil and trash dumped in the oceans, industrial revolution, development of cities and etc. The warm is rising steadily leads to the damage of nature environment. Destruction of their home would be the destruction of the species. The whole project is to try to make a change for these animals.
The strategy of the campaign is to appeal to both emotion and logic that increases the impact on audiences. The emotional of this is strong because of the species they chose to use. No one would care or react if a snake was chosen. On the other hand, a image of the beloved polar bear evokes people’s pitiless and emotion. WWF designers always use metaphor on the campaign to make people think twice and alerts audiences to the present situation.
Image speaks more than thousands of words. It contains no word but a logo of WWF on the right top corner like other ads do, which adds credibility and for public to find out more by searching the name. Also, this is effective thank to design elements like the size and position of the animals that is big and centered. The background provided the information of the location and create the atmosphere of alarming and scary. Colors and lighting are also used strategically, a contrast between the animals and the background can be visualized and automatically think of the message behind. Ironically, grease and oil, covering the mechanics’ hands, the ground and the cars are two substances that contaminate the environment where the animals live in.
The advertisement makes you think a little bit, and that’s what I like about it. The rhinos is being worked on it as if it’s a car that can simply be worked on and made well enough to be running right away. This is not the case, which is where the message of the ad comes in. Poaching is the fourth largest illegal issue in the world, behind drugs, firearms, and human trafficking. It it such a large issue but lately, the government has cut funding for conservation, and these animals are suffering because of it. Rhinos and elephants are two species that are focused on primarily because of elephants’ priceless ivory tusks and rhinos’ “disease healing” horns that sell for an insane amount of money per kilogram. This is a very logical add, for it addresses an issue of urgency and calls for people to take action against poaching.
Lastly, Some light shine through the window represents there is still hope for them but it relies on people’ willingness to fight for the recovery. Werbung asked people through the image to save the endangered species from extinction. WWF is a great example of researching the topic of global warming and tackle the problem through campaigns like this, and the designers often use imagination and photoshop skill to create effective images with a strong message.
I liked the technique and skills of the photographer Gonzago Manso on this campaign.
Credits:
Agency: Contrapunto BBDO Spain
Photography: Gonzaga Manso
Creative Team: Felix del Valle, Carlos Jorge, Saray Gonzalez, Miqui Ocampo