The African Penguin population has decreased by 98% in the last 100 years with only 25K breeding pairs remaining. The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore has the 2nd largest breeding facility for the endangered African Penguins in the world. They have hatched over 1000 chicks.
In 2015 Original Penguin adopted 60 endangered African Penguins on World Penguin Day in celebration of our 60th Anniversary.
In 2016 we went a step further to share the message of conservation with the world.
Every time the Project #ShareConservation video was shared, $1 was donated towards conservation efforts.
Our objective was to spread the message of conservation through the power of sharing on Facebook.
The strategy was to produce a short micro documentary that highlighted the plight of the African Penguin population and the world leading conservation work done at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. The focus had to be a global one, not just for a region on the United States - so we partnered with the Zoo & Aquarium accreditation organization, AZA, as well as SANCCOB in South Africa, who are at the forefront of saving African penguins and other threatened seabirds. Aerial video company Hippogriff Inc. was brought on for production support.
By pulling together archival footage of the ordeal these birds have had in the wild from these organizations, as well as filming at the Maryland Zoo - we compiled this micro documentary into a 3 minute piece. The piece was designed to tug at the heart strings of the viewers while providing them with an immediate call to action so they could feel they made a difference. Every time the video was shared (or liked) Original Penguin donated $1 to help with the conservation of these endangered species.
Content was made in the form of trailers and images to seed the campaign before launch and create awareness. This campaign was socially based but was a full 360 integration. A specialized version ran in retail stores for weeks along with graphic and facts showing the severity of the problem. Ecommerce support was there throughout the campaign with dedicated emails and a landing page with the embedded video.
We positioned the video to launch on the globally trending #WorldPenguinDay, that takes place every year on April 25th. By leveraging the trending topic we were able to get many more eyes on the video than we normally would. This, along with the share prompting CTA created a social media firestorm and a strong increase in brand sentiment as we demonstrated social responsibility for a cause so closely aligned with the brand. After all, this was Penguin helping penguins.
It was the most successful social media campaign ever for the brand. Measured against last year's campaign (the previous best campaign) the results were staggering. +301% engagement from LY, 307% increase in shares, and 4124% increase in likes. The entire campaign went on to reach 2.5 million people, gaining half a million views on related content while amassing over 28K reactions, 600 comments, over 5000 new fans and nearly 10K shares. Winning internal content superlatives as the most watched, liked, shared, commented and engaged piece Original Penguin has ever put out was only the beginning. The outpouring of support from the Original Penguin community and beyond was like nothing the brand had ever seen before. The brand was able to allign itself as a supporter of a cause that really matters to them - protecting penguins.
