Participant Media & Take Part for The Cove

Overview

Participant Media’s documentary The Cove uncovers the truth about the horrifying international capture and killing of dolphins. Most people in Japan have no idea that this crime is even happening. The documentary makers went to great lengths to secretly film the slaughter of these magnificent animals. Their goal was to share the story with the world.

Challenge

A cove in a small seaside village in Taiji, Japan, is just one of the traps used to capture the world’s friendliest creature. Life in captivity is the fate of the most attractive dolphins captured -- the rest are slaughtered for their meat.

With the goal of forcing the Japanese government to stop these brutal murders, The Cove’s producers wanted to share details of this tragedy with the world and enable supporters to spread the word by signing a petition and writing letters to government officials.

Solution

The Cove team chose to host the film’s trailer online in Call2Action’s video widget, the Spark. The Spark was chosen for its ability to bundle the trailer with the petition and allow supporters to share it with anyone anywhere online. If the trailer was going to inspire people to get involved, then it needed to be easy and immediate if it was going to really achieve its mission.

Results

This Spark had a tremendous impact in igniting a movement, and indeed it caught fire immediately. The Spark earned:

•       More than 200,000 views in just over a week
•       An interaction rate of 55%! This is compared to an industry average range for interactive videos of 2%-6%

The team at Take Part did a great job integrating the Spark into their overall campaign, and the overall movement was a tremendous success:

•       1.7 million Petition signatures delivered to the Japanese Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki
•       266,353 Letters to President Obama, Vice President Biden and Japanese Ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisak

Celebrity Posts Add Traction

We've found that celebrities love to share Sparks with their fan communities. Here are examples of celebrity blog posts that had an impact on the campaign's high conversion rates.