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Forest & Bird extracts money from wallets in real-time

The latest Forest & Bird fundraising print campaign by Ogilvy & Mather New Zealand hopes to get readers physically reaching into their wallets by asking them to hold up a $5 note and complete the picture of the Campbell Island flora and fauna. 

The ad’s illustrated scene has the familiar giant daisy, sub-antarctic lily and bull kelp, but it is missing the hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin, until a note is physically placed in the centre and the picture is complete. Then ‘you’ve put hoiho back in the scene with your money’.

Forest & Bird protects all of New Zealand’s native species and wild places, but to keep its independent voice it receives no government nor corporate funding. To raise funds to carry on advocating, it relies heavily on membership and desperately needs new members. The cheapest membership option is $5 a month, and so the ad campaign was born. Ogilvy says through it, people can discover for themselves how a mere $5 could make a huge difference and help put a bird back in its natural environment.

“It’s an idea that has you reaching into your wallet,” says Angus Hennah, Ogilvy & Mather executive creative director. 

“It’s nice to see people interacting with a print ad, and that delight they feel when they complete the picture,” says Phil Bilbrough, marketing manager for Forest and Bird.

Forest & Bird has also recently created a new responsive website to increase engagement and encourage donations, assisted by social media.

It’s too early to know whether the print campaign is effective, or whether magazine readers will play the game, but Bilbrough says he loves the result and is looking forward to rolling out the rest of the series of illustrated ads featuring the species in $10, $20 and $50 notes. Especially the last one.

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