Most of us are oblivious to the idea that every hour, the list of threatened species is growing. It’s a connection and message that the World Wildlife Fund battle with continuously. But there is something that we are all far more familiar with: the feeling of looking for something that’s no longer there.
Pairing up with Odnoklassniki, Russia’s second largest networking site, the WWF picked an opportune moment to feature pictures of animals at risk of extinction: 404 ”not found” error pages. Whenever a user clicked a non-existent or broken link, they would be greeted by a picture of a polar bear, tiger, walrus or whale, along with a message detailing the rarity of the animal and explaining how to help the animal with all the relevant links.
The campaign clearly struck a chord, with 170,000 users hitting 404 pages in the first five days alone, and 6141 users joining the WWF community. Hundreds went on to share the content and further heighten awareness. Simple, and effective.
