We promoted the film and its core message through owned, earned and bought online media calling on our key audiences to sign a petition targeting the Expedia Group – the travel company making significant profits by promoting this cruelty.
The challenge
Over 3,000 dolphins are being held in captivity for purposes of entertainment worldwide. The industry would have you believe they are happy and enjoy performing. But the truth is, dolphin entertainment is extreme animal cruelty masquerading as innocent family fun.
World Animal Protection (WAP) asked us to catch people’s attention and inspire them to take action for dolphins, by calling on large companies to phase out their dolphin excursions.
We worked with WAP to deliver an international campaign that would end this cruelty forever. We developed a digital led strategy that would expose the truth behind the dolphin’s ‘smile’.
We created a powerful and highly shareable film to convey our core message.
With 190,000 signatures on the petition, Expedia agreed to meet World Animal Protection’s campaign team face to face. But when they failed to agree to WAP’s full conditions, we went to Phase 2 of the campaign.
We created the ‘Cruelty Behind The Smile Awards’ and asked our ever growing movement of online activists to nominate Expedia directly.
And we went beyond digital too. In the UK, Canada, Brazil, Sweden, the Netherlands and the USA, our activists took to the streets protesting outside Expedia’s offices.
Having mobilised our key audience, we offered them the opportunity to support the campaign financially too.
Outcome
The campaign generated over
300,000
petition signatures.
40,000
supporters have contacted Expedia’s CEO directly by email and Twitter.
2,500
more have signed physical protest cards. Online campaigners have donated over
$195,000.
Several major travel companies, including Trip Advisor, Virgin, Booking.com and Airbnb, have all agreed to stop promoting dolphin entertainment all together. As a result of our pressure, Expedia agreed to update their policy, reducing from 48 to 28 the number of venues they promote.
Related Work
Clients
We’re so proud to work with with a wide range of incredible charities and organisations. Our partnerships cover everything from animal welfare and disability support to humanitarian aid and conservation, showing our dedication to making a real difference across some of the world’s most important causes.
