Breaking The Brand
Project
To Stop the Demand
for Rhino Horn in Viet Nam.
A world without wild rhinoceros in
Africa and Asia is becoming a real possibility. The demand for rhino horn and its products is
spinning out of control in Asia - But brands can be both built and broken.The Breaking The Brand project www.breakingthebrand.org
is using research from behavioural economics to target the users of rhino horn.
We are focusing on
the demand and the customer because despite all the incredible work going into
the conservation, anti-poaching and legislation side, the poaching rate keeps
increasing. We will focus our skills and time on the customer with the aim to
Break The Brand to Stop the Demand for Rhino Horn in Viet Nam and Throughout
Asia. With your help we can directly target the primary users of genuine rhino horn. This is NOT an raising awareness or education campaign. They are needed, but they take a long time. This is a brand breaking campaign to change the purchasing behaviour of the users before it is too late for wild rhinos. When we send out campaign to one of the worlds leading conservationists his response was ‘Your plan to influence those who buy rhino
horn is indeed a bold and original one’. Support us and play a part in a strategy other in the conservation space have said has a good chance of working
The recent increase in rhino poaching in Africa and Asia is largely
due to the exponential increase in demand from Viet Nam, for more detail see: http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/viet_nam_consumers_factsheet.pdf.
The rhino poaching statistics from South Africa starkly illustrate
the problem (total rhino population in Africa is 25,000 animals):
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Our aim is to destroy the current brand of
rhino horn in Viet Nam as a 'status enhancing' and 'miracle cure' product. This
demand is driven by aspirational needs of a newly wealthy upper class. The main
uses for rhino horn are as a:
·
Status symbol in building
business networks and negotiating business deals
·
Detox drink for high-status men
after a night of indulgence.
·
Health supplement for the
children of affluent Vietnamese mothers.
The TRAFFIC Factsheet (linked above)
outlines a typical user: Mr L is a 48 year old property developer, married for
24 years; he also has a mistress. His family lives in a large four-bedroomed
house in the Ciputra area of Hanoi. He has two children who are 19 and 21 years
old. We estimate that there are only around 10,000 users of genuine rhino horn in Viet Nam, out of a population of 90 million.
Conservation and protection measures alone
are unable to curb the killing spree. Only
by addressing the demand side directly can the rhino be saved in the end. So how
are we going to break the brand? By using the power of advertising.
We are very lucky to have the award winning
international advertising agency Grey Group (Melbourne, Australia) as a partner.
They are donating all the creative work to the project and Grey Group Viet Nam
is also involved to translate and place the adverts in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh
City.
How will the funds
be used?
A pilot series of 5 adverts have been
created (in both Vietnamese and English).
We need to raise money to place the adverts
in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Our goal is to have the adverts running for at
least 30 weeks during 2014.
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Aim:
To tarnish the act of giving rhino horn by making the giver and the act look desperate and needy; and, as a result tarnish the prestige of the person giving rhino horn.![]()
Aim:
To raise public awareness of the rhino horn poisoning strategy for stopping rhino poaching and be clear on possible risk to personal health.![]()
Aim:
Capture the attention of people who genuinely believe rhino horn is a medication suitable for children (and sick adults).Given the advert is not gory it can be used with children and in schools to help education. Create greater awareness that
using rhino horn means killing the animal and test empathy for the rhino from this user group.
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Aim: To raise public awareness of the rhino horn poisoning strategy for stopping rhino poaching and be clear on possible risk to personal health.
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Aim:
To raise public awareness of the rhino horn poisoning strategy for stopping rhino poaching. To understand that the consequences of using poisoned rhino horn may not be instant but could have long term impact on brain development etc.
These adverts will target the two main
users in Viet Nam:
·
High status males who use it
with their peer group
·
Affluent mothers who give it to
their children
With this campaign we would like to raise
at least $20,000 to go towards placing these adverts in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. We will only use locations that are frequented by the two primary target groups.
Examples
of where the adverts will be placed include:
·
Light boxes at Airport business lounges (up to $25K per month for 5-7 locations)
·
Business Magazines (up to $5K per month)
·
Women’s Magazine’s (up to $4K per month)
How much of your
donation will go to this project?
Breaking
the Brand is run 100% by volunteers so ALL of the funds that come to us via
Indiegogo will go directly to running the campaign in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh
City.
Any Additional
Funds
Funds
raised in excess of the $20,000 will also go directly to publishing the
campaign adverts in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Special Thanks go
to:
All the fantastic people who have donated and sponsored the PERKS we can offer - you can see them below.
Randal, Nigel and Pete, from Grey
Group Melbourne, for donating their time, creativity and energy when we
came to see them with nothing but an idea.
Amy and the team at Cafe
Three One 2 One for letting us film in front of the Makatron
rhino mural - and for coffee while we worked!
Nicholas at the SAVE African
Rhino Foundation for supporting us from day one
The PERKS include:
Why not take your partner (or go with friends) on a luxury safari to Botswana and Zimbabwe. Buy yourself some amazing artwork or something fabulous to wear. There are a range of PERKS for our supporters and 100% of what come to us from Indiegogo goes directly to the campaign.
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If you would like any more information about the campaign or the perks, please contact us via email: lynn@breakingthebrand.org
