Flow has been working with WWF South Africa for just over a year now – and it’s great to know that we’ve been able to help support one of the world’s most respected conservation organisations.
WWF-SA (which, incidentally, stands for World Wide Fund for Nature and not World Wildlife Fund) is part of a global network, active in over 100 countries with almost six million supporters and more than 50 years of action behind it.
WWF-SA is a national office with the stated objective of inspiring all South Africans to “live in harmony with nature, for the benefit of our country and the well-being of all our people”.
The projects WWF-SA supports range from protecting grasslands, to rhino conservation, research into renewable energy, changing agricultural practices, encouraging sustainable seafood consumption, raising water awareness and creating protected areas.
Flow started working with WWF-SA around World Rhino Day in 2013, coming up with the hashtag #iam4rhinos to create a Twitter storm for rhino awareness. On September 22 this year, Flow once again helped WWF-SA mark World Rhino Day, which in turn marked our one-year anniversary of the relationship between Flow and WWF-SA.
Whether it’s activating social media around the Journey of Water campaign, managing media queries 24/7, or encouraging cyclists to sign up for Ride for Nature, in the past year the Pandas certainly have kept us on our toes!
Says Pedzi Gozo, executive manager: strategic communications and marketing for WWF-SA: “Our working relationship with Flow has been fruitful. Flow brings creativity and innovation to our projects and the team has been a delight to work with.”
Flow staffer Andrea Weiss, who works with the WWF on a daily basis, says: “It’s been fabulous to work with the Panda team whose integrity and commitment to conservation is so evident by the enthusiasm that I have experienced in their office. Many people are not aware of quite how deep their work goes, which is part of my challenge when offering media support to them.”
Earth Hour 2014
Flow was involved in the design work and conceptualisation of Earth Hour 2014, which saw Cape Town crowned Earth Hour Capital. The Earth Hour 2014 campaign in South Africa focused on the question: “How do you honour the Earth?” It called on individuals to think about how their behaviour affects the environment, and DJs and other radio personalities were asked to spread the word. All these individuals were asked to fill in their pledges on a web page that was designed and created by Flow.
New regional headquarters in Braamfontein
WWF-SA has been refurbishing an old corner café site in Braamfontein, downtown Johannesburg, as its new regional headquarters in Gauteng with a view to showcasing how upcycling and environmentally friendly technology can be used to create a showcase building. Flow continues to be involved in documenting this innovative building, which opens its doors officially next year.
Media support
Andrea has been embedded in the day-to-day work of WWF-SA since November 2013, helping the organisation to interact with journalists and providing media advice where required. This work has covered a range of recent activities, from the World Rhino Day launch of a behavioural change campaign in Vietnam, to the recent release of the authoritative WWF Living Planet Report 2014.
Social media training
The entire WWF-SA communications team attended a social media workshop with Flow. As a result they have taken many of the lessons on board and are applying social media strategies to all their campaigns and activities. Even the CEO, Dr Morné du Plessis, took time out of his busy schedule for some one-on-one Twitter training at the Flow offices in Johannesburg.
#RideforNature
When you ask a Flow staffer to don a panda suit, you never know quite what is going to happen next. As a way of encouraging cyclists to sign up to WWF-SA's Ride for Nature programme, Flow helped activate a social media campaign that involved men in panda suits at Moonlight Mass in Cape Town and Critical Mass in Johannesburg. The idea was to ensure that WWF was top of mind as a potential beneficiary for anyone wishing to raise funds for a charity when participating in a cycle race.
World Rhino Day, 22 September
The hashtag #iam4rhinos continues to resonate a year after it came into being. A recent SumAll report shows that in its lifetime, #iam4rhinos has reached 515-million accounts! For World Rhino Day 2014, Flow helped to develop a package of social media content for distribution to the global WWF network, and helped organise a press conference held simultaneously in Johannesburg and Cape Town, with a live link to Vietnam.
