The Challenge

The International Fund for Animal Welfare needed a high-profile campaign to dramatize public concern about Canada’s loss of wild species, to complement the government relations work of other conservation groups. Research showed that a large majority of Canadians felt that Canada should have ‘the strongest protection for endangered species in the world’ so Strategic Communications anchored that idea in a public engagement strategy tied to stunning visual imagery.

The Solution

This poster of a Monarch butterfly with the tagline ‘When we were kids, they were everywhere…’ was positioned in bus shelters along Wellington, Bank, and other downtown Ottawa streets in front of Parliament Hill, as well as on the superboard at Queen/Duncan streets in Toronto. Wherever the poster went up, young activists in full butterfly costume appeared, urging members of the public to make a phone call — immediately, by cellphone — to the Federal Minister, demanding a strong endangered species law.

The Results

The campaign proved that the Canadian public were concerned about the issue, which produced new pressure on stalled ‘insider’ lobby work. But it also gave IFAW-Canada a whole new identity for a whole new audience who had never been loyal to them before.