The Brief

To build awareness of modern whaling and encourage the public to support Sea Shepherd in their ongoing efforts to stop commercial whaling for good.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

To communicate the suffering of whales and promote Sea Shepard's cause, we created an entirely new musical genre: Whale Death Metal. 'Whale Death Metal' radio spots were placed in easy listening time slots to disrupt the public and force them to acknowledge modern whaling and hear whale song in a completely different light. CD's were mailed to radio stations, influential people and handed out to the unsuspecting public at diving and marine conventions, and itunes allowed people to share their experience online. Disguised as typical whale song CDs, the grim reality of the whale's song only became apparent when someone pressed play.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

Hits on the Sea Shepherd website and online donations to the organization increased significantly following public handouts and radio broadcasts. Sea Shepherd also received a higher percentage of donations from a much younger, 18 - 34 demographic.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Everybody loves whales and whale song is a good example of this. The problem is that few people face the fact that they are still being slaughtered for commercial purposes and stand up and do something about it. We wanted to take something familiar and give it a twist so that whale lovers would be forced to face the reality of commercial whaling. And we wanted to do it in a way that was unexpected and very different to the traditional routes taken by environmental organisations.