Background

WildAid aims to reach Chinese consumers through a high impact multimedia awareness and education campaign that directly targets consumers using cultural and athletic heroes and celebrities of China including basketball legend Yao Ming. The concept is to use high profile and highly recognizable advocates to deliver a message proven to make shark fin soup socially unacceptable. WildAid will deploy this message across a variety of mediums: Television, print, billboards, in-flight monitors, bus boards, special events, Internet, socially viral media and grassroots community outreach.

Aims and Objectives

• Television Advertising: Television commercials will feature prominent Chinese and international celebrities, powerful businessmen and politicians, and famous athletes, focusing upon those individuals who serve as spheres of influence for the targeted consumer groups. Yao Ming has agreed to record a new shark message and we are exploring teaming him up with leading Chinese business leaders. The commercials will extend the highly successful message of the Olympics campaign.
• Television distribution: These advertisements will be distributed widely as Public Service Announcements (PSAs), airing at no charge. We will seek to ensure that the PSA campaigns continue to reach the unprecedented numbers – up to 1 billion people – recently achieved and also attempt to target them to the primary audience. In addition, 1500 screens owned by Beijing City government in office buildings and street corners will be showing the messages.
• Billboards: ads featuring Yao Ming and other stars will be utilized at the highly discounted cost of $100 per billboard per month, including the cost of production, printing and mounting the boards.
• Internet and Mobile Media: There are now 338 million Chinese users of the Internet representing the upscale audience we are targeting. Internet blogs and social networks are very popular in China. All advertising, and press will encourage people to visit a web site focused on the hazards of shark fin soup. This will include the following:
• 2 to 3 minute movie that will extend the message of the commercials, providing more depth as to why shark fin soup should not be eaten.
• Educational material regarding sharks, their importance to the environment, and the hazards of shark fin soup.
• Comments regarding shark fin soup from Chinese and International politicians, actors, musicians, artists, businessmen and other personalities.
• Pledge to not eat the soup. Visitors will be asked to take a pledge not to eat the soup, raising their level of commitment.
• Viral Distribution: People who have taken the pledge will be thanked in a message from Yao Ming who will encourage them to use the provided form to invite others to see the movie and take the pledge. The movie and ads will be distributed virally to social networking sites, blogs, video sharing sites, and mobile devices.
• Advocate tools: Downloadable educational materials, pledge forms, letters to one’s company or local restaurants requesting that shark fin soup not be served.
• Children’s section of the site that provides age appropriate information, activities, and a pledge – building upon previous work done with school children. “I love sharks” will be a primary message as well.
• Library of ads and commercials.
• Internet advertising: We will utilize Internet advertising on the major portals to drive additional traffic to the site.
• Instant messaging: We are working with Tencent, which has 220 million subscribers on a competition to design a public service message.