Do you know how many tigers are left in China? …1000? …500? You’re not even close. There are now less than 50 tigers left in the whole country!
Tigers once roamed in their thousands but in the last century the tiger population has dropped significantly through human activities such as logging and the increasing use of tiger bone in traditional Chinese medicines.
So the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) China and TRAFFIC (the wildlife trade monitoring network) teamed up to create a clever digital campaign titled, “Listen To The Tiger” (虎生命的呐喊). Here’s how the campaign worked:
Objective
To raise awareness around the threats to the tiger population and encourage people to support the protection of tigers in China.
What did they do?
WWF China together with TRAFFIC created a website (www.listentothetiger.com) that allowed people from China and the rest of the world to register their support for the conservation of tigers in the Mainland.
At the website, visitors were welcomed by the sounds from the tiger’s natural habitat, including bird song, animals calling, wind rustling tree leaves and water rippling along a brook. After every 50th visitor registered their support for wild tigers, a tiger’s roar was played to complete the aural overture.
People could register their support in a number of ways and bring on the next roar in a number of ways. Either directly through the site, or through a range of social networking websites, including Twitter. Chinese citizens could even support the campaign through Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo, Renren and Kaixin or even via text messaging.
Results
The campaign ran for 1 month in January 2011, finishing just before the Year of the Tiger ended on the 2nd February. The idea of the campaign focused on the fact that potentially in 12 years time when the Year of the Tiger comes round again, there may be no tigers left in China.
Over 3,000 people registered their support via the site, giving a ‘roar rate’ of 60 roars. Chinese celebrities including Yao Chen, Yu Quan and Zhang Yadong also got behind the campaign.
Finally, there was an outdoor ‘Big Sound Event’, where the tiger’s roars were played out in the city Beijng via a big screen setup in the Sanlitun Village. Check out the video here: WWF China: Listen To The Tiger – Video
If you want to pledge your support to tiger conservation visit WWF’s website here.
Agency Credit: Ogilvy China (Beijing Branch)
