Advertising Campaign and Solving Environmental Problems: A Case Study of WWF’s Environmental Campaigns

Technological progress and Industrializing in cities in recent years have caused devastating effects in natural habitats followed by a gradual decline in biodiversity. So environmentalists and non-governmental organizations have realized the necessity of informing people about negative consequences of environmental damages. WWF is one of the active non-governmental organizations in the context of environments which has brought really great results in solving environmental issues all over the world since 1960. WWF in different countries in order to fulfill their goals and promote a culture of conservation, launched various campaigns and promotional campaigns tailored approaches that are designed and implemented. Global warming, endangered animals and a gradual decline in the forest area of issues that are seriously taken into consideration in the organization's campaigns. In this research the overall characteristics of WWF campaigns and then the affecting factors in design of the campaigns are studied and visual characteristics of these campaigns are extracted. Analyzing the broad advertisements that this organization uses to reach its goals, can be helpful in improving the use of advertisement in the context of environment in Iran. So this study's goal is specifically determining the visual features of environmental campaigns designed by WWF. The research method of this study is qualitative and its target population is all campaigns of WWF organization. Four campaign to be chosen and then 11 samples of them have been analyzed. The data collection tool was precise and structural observation. The samples have been chosen purposefully. It should be noted that this study is part of a broader research that has been done with a multimethode. In fact, the selection criteria in the Qualitative study reported in this paper, have been extracted from quantitative tests conducted on all samples. Finally the visual characteristics of each campaign were compared. Comparison of the effects of campaigns shows similarities and differences in relation to the type of composition, frame, texture, color, form, text, the position of the text and the logo of the organization. The results of sample analysis showed that in two cases of the four campaigns, all works have the same composition and in two campaigns in some of the works have been different. In three campaigns form of works are similar and in one campaign is different. In three campaigns, color combinations of works are the same and in another one is different. In all three printed campaigns similar position of logo and text can be seen in the works of campaigns. In one case of printed campaigns, the type of frame is different and the remaining two were similar. In all campaigns none of the cases have similar texture. In general, in the samples were analyzed, samples that belong to a campaign in most cases have similarity or proximity in the type of frame, form, color and composition and organization's logo and text messages are in the same framework and in a similar position.