Branding Expert Ogilvy Is Using Conversation Media Marketing - Why aren't you?

David Ogilvy, the OG "Mad Man" (series reference) or "father of advertising" left a legacy; his Agency.

And the Ogilvy agency continues to make campaigns that raise strong feelings in consumers.

In June 2021, Ogilvy made campaigns for raising awareness towards the rising Animal Trafficking.

But before we get into that let me give you a little background.

Why Wildlife Trafficking Is Suddenly In Picture?

India is one of the top 20 countries involved in Illegal Wildlife Trafficking.

The preferred route for wildlife smugglers is the fast-expanding air transport in India. Expansion of Airports in India is found directly proportional to spike in Wildlife trafficking.

Wildlife trade is the biggest direct threat to the survival of species second only to habitat destruction.

This dashboard by Routes shows data from C4ADS’ Wildlife Seizure Database that has information on 4,000 global Wildlife seizures in the last five years.

This data helped trace the patterns and trends in wildlife trafficking. It also highlighted the urgency to do something about this issue.

image courtesy - c4ads.org

Various stakeholders came together to make sure that this issue is heard.

UN Environment Programme collaborated with WWF-India, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau – Govt. Of India, and the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change.

These organizations are working to control the rising wildlife trafficking in the air transport sector in India.

The idea is to implement a law that moderates this practice.

They are also working on building tools that will help the Customs and CISF staff. These tools will help identify and report illegal transport of wildlife trade by air.

Country Head Of India's United Nation Environment Programme, Atul Bagai said -

“The COVID -19 pandemic has been a wake-up call to the human race to respect nature and to learn to coexist (as) illegal wildlife trade is the fourth largest global crime,”.

Ogilvy Strikes With Powerful Campaigns

Now the UNEP knew the cause but to create a powerful message they collaborated with Ogilvy.

Ogilvy came up with two communication campaigns. These campaigns will help start the conversation about illegal wildlife trafficking.

The two campaigns were: Not Your Medicine and Sad Emojis.

Not Your Medicines Campaign With Soul Stirring Visuals

Visuals have always been significant especially for campaigns on such emotional themes.

This Visuall campaign highlights the use of the Illicit wildlife trade as medicines.

These practices are born out of unscientific remedies based on myths. They give birth to new age "Snake-oil" salesmen and take advantage of desperate or superstitious people.

Ogilvy's "Not your medicines" is a heart-rending campaign but one of the best ways to start a conversation in today's time is to become a part of it.

This leads us to the second campaign.

Sad Emoji Conversation Media Marketing Campaign

These SadEmojis tell the story that these animals couldn't

To be used as medicines, trophies, fashion accessories, and more is not what our stunning Wildlife deserves.

Emoji Marketing is a big hit and the fact that pioneers of advertising like Ogilvy use it so effectively is amazing.

Emoji's shareable nature helped the "Sad Emoji" campaign become a part of everyday user conversations.

Celebrities like Dia Mirza and Akshay Kumar joined the cause by sharing both campaigns.

They used #SadEmojis in their conversations and even inspired their followers to do so.

So the campaigns were successful in starting a dialogue on this serious issue of Wildlife trafficking.

But this isn't the first time emoji marketing has been successful in raising awareness on social issues.

WWF also used emojis beautifully for their campaign #EndageredEmojis.

For this emoji marketing campaign, WWF came out with 17 custom-made emojis of endangered animals.

People could support the campaign by agreeing to donate 11 cents every time they used one of these emojis.

Conversation Media Marketing came in handy in both these public awareness campaigns. It blends the power of visuals with the digestible medium that works well with the short attention span of Netizens.