The Assignment: Take a social cause (in our case: illegal animal trade) and develop an advertising campaign with tangible effects and touchpoints to raise awareness for this cause.
The Problem: The illegal elephant poaching and ivory smuggling market has continued to grow, and little has been done that has curbed the trade.
The Project: Our team developed a U.S.-based awareness campaign entitled the "Gray Initiative." This program collaborated with popular retailers related to both Gen X and Gen Z consumers in order to raise proceeds which are then sent to the Clinton Global Initiative to stop poaching and trafficiking. This was a massive scaled project which took into account as many touchpoints for younger and older consumers to join in the movement to stop the deaths of these endangered elephants.
My Involvement: Along with Nicole Weaver, I worked on forming an in-depth target analysis. We decided that causes involving endangered animals would best fit with older adults and younger children, which led us to form a two-pronged tactic of reaching Generation X as our primary providers and generation Z as our secondary audience. I dove into research particularly on the Generation Z side, looking at how much they tend to donate to charities each year and considering their influence on the spending habits of their parents, since these kids would likely lack enough money to purchase things on their own. I took into account their integration into social media, which led our team to develop a youth-oriented social media project. In terms of our Generation X consumers, I provided research which indicated that Gen X individuals will donate to causes as long as they have visible results, as well as the touchpoints they typically donate at (such as supermarkets and in physical stores) to guide our appeals to them.
This was a key case of developing a target identity, and forming an in-depth analysis of a consumer.
Business of Branding
Final Project
Developed by Keely, Elizabeth, Nicole.