Investec

Pan-African Campaign of the Year

Tusk Awards

1. OverviewEvery year, the Tusk Conservation Awards celebrate the brave conservationists who work to preserve Africa’s precious wildlife for its people. But with the awards traditionally taking place in London, African audiences have been disengaged from the inspiring work the organisation celebrates. For the first time since inception, Tusk, alongside headline sponsor Investec, brought the awards to Africa. Tasked with creating awareness around the awards, encouraging audiences to watch the ceremony on Facebook, and driving engagement on both traditional and social media, we undertook a three-phase pan-African campaign to meet these objectives. [91 words]

2. Statement of Problem and Opportunity Tusk is a dynamic and pioneering organisation a 28-year history of initiating and funding conservation, community development and environmental education programmes across Africa. Despite this rich legacy and the involvement of the British Royal Family, the continent is largely unaware of the intricate and dedicated work the organisation does to preserve Africa’s wildlife.

Along with our client, Investec, we wanted to raise awareness around Tusk and educate the continent on the awards in preparation for the first time they would be held on the continent. The Royal patron of Tusk, HRH Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, would not be attending the event as he had in previous years. This meant the execution of this campaign had to rely purely on PR and social efforts from our side and not a celebrity name.

3. Geographical areaPR and social media activities were spread across Africa, with an emphasis on South Africa, Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, and Nigeria.

4. ResearchAs this was the first time that the awards would be held in Africa, we needed to establish the extent of historic media coverage so we had a benchmark to work with. Our online media sweep established that from previous years, there was minimal coverage on the Tusk Awards and next to none on the organisation itself within the African market. Journalists were under the impression that the Tusk Awards was an event that was organised and run for those in the West. We needed to demystify this notion and establish it as a cause that all Africans should consider being a part of.

5. Planning

5.1 Audiences and messages

Audience Description Expected outcome Message takeouts Vehicle

Primary Media • Raising profile of

conservation efforts

in Africa.

• Telling good news

about wildlife in

Africa.

• Tune-in to the

Awards streaming

live on Tusk

Facebook page.

• Incredible

work is being

done to

protect

Africa’s

wildlife.

• Tusk is at the

forefront of

this work.

• Pre-event

interviews

• Press releases

• Event

Communities of

affected areas

• Raising awareness

of conservation

efforts.

• Tune-in to Awards

live stream.

• Tusk is an

organisation

interested in

protection of

Africa’s

wildlife and

environment.

• Regional media

engagement

Environmental

enthusiasts

• Consciousness that

efforts are made to

conserve African

wildlife.

• Tune-in to Awards

live stream.

• Tusk and its

finalists care

about Africa’s

natural

heritage.

• Influencer

engagement

• Media

Secondary General public • Raising awareness

through education.

• Tune-in to Awards

live stream.

• Tusk is an

organisation

interested in

protection of

Africa’s

wildlife and

environment.

• Finalists of the

awards are

heroes.

• Media

• Influencer

engagement

Our pre-campaign engagement phase saw us begin targeting media based on the journalists’ level of interest. From that point, we widened our targeting to include journalists whose articles reached masses in their respective regions.

While the campaign was for a positive cause, it was clear that media would also be interested in controversial conservation topics – some of which could not be avoided. We therefore, created talking points for our finalists and spokespeople, which allowed us to control the conversation and keep the focus on the Tusk Awards.

5.2 Objectives, Measurable Criteria and Evaluation

Objectives Measurable criteria for success Evaluation / Actual successes

Create awareness on the

Tusk Conservation

Awards taking place in

Cape Town.

• Develop content to

produce coverage across

Africa.

• Pre and post-event exposure

achieved across Southern,

Western, Eastern Africa and the

Middle East

• 30 media placements

Drive viewership of the

Tusk Awards on the Tusk

Facebook page.

• Obtain a minimum of 500

views on Facebook

• Maintained a viewership of over

4,000 views on Facebook

without the draw-card of HRH

Prince William to push traffic.

Resonance with

causes/work of the

different finalists.

• Get coverage in countries

where finalists are based

(minimum of 5

countries).

• Ensure that all coverage

drives key messages that

are critical to Tusk and

the Awards.

• Coverage generated in 7

territories were including:

o South Africa, Malawi,

Zambia, Nigeria

o Pan African media

o Middle eastern media

• At least 3,8 million reached

• Positive sentiment measured at

90% (neutral: 10%) of all

coverage.

• Key messages retained in

100% of coverage.

Secure media attendance

to the awards

• Identify 5 media to invite

to attend the awards.

• 5 media attended (limited to

five because of the venue)

6. ExecutionThe objectives of the campaign demanded that each goal be tackled incrementally –this informed the three-phased communications approach.

The pre-event activation phase began a month before the awards were to take place. We focused on raising awareness around the work of the finalists who were to be honoured at the awards. We unpacked what the Tusk Organisation was and why the awards were important through a video series that was shared with bloggers and on Tusk’s social media channels. We did not want to limit our audiences to only wildlife enthusiasts and chose to engage with general members of the public to ensure that the news was spread far and wide.

Since campaign spokespeople and finalists were all based outside of South Africa and would only arrive in Cape Town two days before the event, our media engagement and interview opportunities were greatly minimised. To circumvent this, we shared pre-made content with broadcast media and set up a post-event interview schedule that media could slot themselves into. While we were able to accommodate most interview requests, the availability of our guests of honour could have produced far greater results as media interest was highly piqued.

On the night of the awards, we defined roles and managed media requests, limiting interviews to 10 minutes. With esteemed guests such as FW de Klerk, Graça Machel-Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, media had plenty of angles for their interviews, which the PR team managed with ease. Media based outside of South Africa streamed the awards via the Tusk Facebook page and came back to us with requests for quotes for their own content.

Following the event, we jointly crafted content with journalists to allow them unique angles while including all of our key messages.

7. EvaluationSee 5.2

8. ConclusionThe first ever Tusk Conservation Awards in Africa proved to be a successful attempt to bring an African-specific event to the continent that inspired it. Media readily shared news of the awards and the brave work that game-rangers do every single day. The finalists’ courage was lauded in every single placement, and this carried through across our hashtag #ForAllTheyDo, in both traditional and social media. The media buy-in proved that the appetite for positive conservation stories was there and could be used to secure more general news placements for our client. [1,198 words including headings]

Letter of endorsement from client

Examples of Press Clippings

Examples of Press Clippings

Examples of Press Clippings