Case study WWF Schweiz

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), with its iconic panda logo, is best known as an animal conservation organization. But the WWF doesn’t just lobby to protect endangered species – it also works on several different environmental issues, such as rainforest preservation, the restoration of ocean habitats and climate change. Simply put, the WWF is working to leave a livable planet to coming generations. The organization wanted to make its diverse commitments and aims known to the general public.

• Awareness: Increasing awareness of the WWF as an organization for environmental advocacy
• Awareness shift: The WWF advocates for environmental protection, not just animal conservation
• High visibility: reaching the broadest possible audience with the campaign’s messages

To ensure high visibility from the get-go, the marketing campaign launched with a branding day on watson.ch on April 19, 2021. Throughout the entire campaign, programmatic advertising across multiple publishers (the newspapers 20 Minuten, Tages-Anzeiger and Le Temps, the tio.ch news portal, etc., and open auction with third-party and custom audiences) was used to reach a broad target audience. We could therefore dynamically optimize the purchase of advertising space, leading to a continuous increase in efficiency. Thanks to highly precise targeting, the advertisements were shown to an audience chosen for its behavioral, demographic and geographic aspects. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok were used as cost-effective advertising channels to generate awareness. Thanks to the high volume of data on patterns of interest and behavior, the campaign was able to reach relevant users who had not yet shown a proactive interest in the WWF. 

Poster ads in urban areas – focusing on public transit stations, streets with heavy foot traffic and city centers – supplemented the digital campaign. Out-of-home ads rounded out the 360-degree media approach and achieved impressively high acceptance and visibility.

• More than 2.1 million impressions and a click-through rate of 0.21% (benchmark: 0.15–0.20%) at campaign launch with the watson.ch branding day
• Programmatic advertising: high viewability of 80%, with average cost of CHF 6.35 per 1,000 viewable impressions (vCPM) 
• Social media: a CPM 10% cheaper than forecast resulted in a greater reach; particularly well-suited to TikTok, with a CTR of 0.60%
• OOH: Achieved a 73% reach in target areas; 34 opportunities to see (OTS) resulted in a gross rating point (GRP) of 2487
• The campaign’s best performance came among young, environmentally conscious audiences.