Campaigns against deforestation

There have been many campaigns against deforestation across the globe that has played a huge role in making more people aware of the situation and the repercussions that will result from it. The World Wide Fund  have been one of the most original when it comes to their campaigning against it and have created very alarming advertisements that leave a dent in those that witness the adverts mind.

(WWF. 2010)

 Greenpeace created a campaign against deforestation from a different angle and instead of scaring the public; they decide to make their campaign humorous to gain more attention. As the biggest toy company in the world, Mattel became highly criticised for using the manufacturer ‘Asia Pulp and Paper (APP)’ that is notoriously involved in the destruction of the Sumatran tiger’s habitat and forests for paper and pulp. The public became angry and decided to take action against them. Photos were created with Barbie holding a chain saw; interviews with ken were played out and received more than 1 million views on YouTube and not to forget the public feud between Barbie and Ken that was created on twitter. Greenpeace activists also climbed up the Mattel headquarters and dropped a gigantic banner that had a picture of Ken very angry with the comment “Barbie, its over. I don’t date girls that are into deforestation” which gained a lot of attention worldwide and even made it onto some of the leading news channels shows. While the news programmes were showing the banner, they also provided the reason as to why Greenpeace were doing it, and this brought a lot of attention to deforestation in Indonesia and the effects of it. Mattel knew that they needed to do some serious damage control to keep their current brand image. They decided to drop APP from their supply chain and use more responsible forms to create their Barbie dolls. They have also been trying to influence other companies to do the same and avoid manufacturers that are involved in deforestation and in their supply chains.

(Kenyon, L. 2011) (Merchant, B. 2011)