Case Study: Nature Conservancy, Seeking Renewed Relevance, Focuses on Environment’s Benefits to Human Health Video on Medical Value of Coral Reefs Resonates Ocean Lifesaver

It’s tough going these days for environmental and green organizations. As traditional donors to the environmental sector skew older (Caucasian men and women now well into their sixties), the green movement is losing momentum. With the tough economy on people’s minds, attitudes about the environment are currently 85% negative and 55% positive, according to Pew Research.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC), which launched in 1951 and now has more than one million members, grappled with these statistics as the organization’s communications team met during a planning retreat in 2011.

For its “Coral Reefs Saved My Life” campaign, The Nature Conservancy led off with a video featuring Arden O’Connor, who was being treated with a drug that originated in the ocean. Kerry Crisley, associate director of strategic communications, whose area of focus is oceans, was thinking how the organization would get people to care. While the environment wasn’t top of mind, health and wellness were front and center.

“We’d had a Web page that presented coral reefs as the medicine chests of the next century,” Crisley says. “And just about everyone has been touched by cancer either directly or indirectly. What if we could find someone who could say the words, ‘a coral reef saved my life’”?

One of TNC’s scientists mentioned that the main drug used in the chemotherapy of Leukemia patients is derived from a sea sponge found in the Caribbean. The TNC team then spoke with an expert at the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Cancer Center about the drug and other remedies stemming from marine life. Stephanie Wear, TNC’s director of coral reef conservation, spent weeks researching the connection of coral reefs and life-saving medicines.

The initiative was set. TNC would not espouse the ocean as something beautiful that must be saved. Instead it would tout the personal health benefits that ocean life could provide. The campaign has included the following steps:

• Confirm the medicines derived from oceans and build a consumer campaign to raise awareness, encourage engagement and generate revenue for TNC’s marine work.

• Identify individuals whose lives have been saved because of nature.

• Identify individuals in the medical field who would validate the role the oceans play in lifesaving medicines.

• Develop personal stories with heart and emotion that appeal to a mass audience (especially Generation X women).

• Maximize the use of images, video, the Web, social media and public relations to spread the word.

• Raise awareness of the connections during key points of the year, such as World Ocean’s Day in June 2011 and Mother’s Day in 2011 and 2012.

FINDING THE FACE

In looking for an individual to personalize the story, TNC team found Arden O’Connor, an avid snorkeler and visitor of the Caribbean who received the Arra-C drug as part of her chemotherapy treatments when she was diagnosed with leukemia.

Tapping physicians and marine biologists for research support, TNC developed a compelling story of Arden’s personal struggle for survival and connected the role that nature played, building a campaign titled, “A Coral Reef Saved My Life.”

VIDEO ON THE CHEAP

First up in campaign execution was the creation of two videos (made for a grand total of $500). The first, Crisley says, featured O’Connor, Dr. Bruce Chabner, director of clinical research at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Stephanie Wear, director of coral reef conservation at The Nature Conservancy. A second video was a “man on the street” effort, asking citizens how much they knew about coral reefs as the “medicine chests of the sea.” A dedicated landing page was set up to present the coral reef story, which included a call to action for donations and memberships.

Within the first three months of release, the two videos were ranked in the top 10% of TNC’s 600+ video archive in unique views. Much of that success is due to media relations around the coral reef initiative.

TAKING IT OUT SLOW

“Going out to the media with a story that shows what nature can do for people is not an easy task,” says Rachel Winters, senior media relations manager of The Nature Conservancy. “But I recognized the strong correlation of the value coral reefs and the medicines they can offer. I knew it was a story that could work.”

Winters’ media strategy was anything but Media Relations 101. While she knew the coral reef story inside and out, it wasn’t until after the Web page was up that she began her outreach. “I didn’t send it out via a mass pitch or a press release,” she says. Instead, she kept the story in her back pocket for one-on-one meetings with journalists. “It was a good conversation piece,” she says. What is more, Winters had another reason to be interested in the topic: her father was fighting cancer at the time of the launch.

PRESS POUNCES

The story resonated with the media, particularly broadcast stations. Winters did a coral reef segment on TNC’s bi-weekly spot on NY1. After lunch with Chris Kilham, the “medicine hunter” on Fox News, Winters landed a segment on “Fox News Health.”

The big get was a segment on “NBC Nightly News” with reporter Anne Thompson.

The team went to Key West, Fla., where NBC documented TNC’s work in protecting endangered reefs, featuring O’Connor. The piece aired in April 2012 during Earth Month.

For print media, Winters saw the coral reef story as an opportunity to broaden TNC’s reach into consumer publications, which would be interested in the human-interest angle.

Linking the pitch to the O’Connor video, Winters landed stories in Huffington Post (the blog covered the “Adopt A Coral Reef” campaign in an article about the 2012 holiday gift-buying season), Martha Stewart Living and the online consumer green-living site Care2.

In addition, TNC team shared O’Connor’s story with the organization’s one million members via its website and social media. Treatments on the Web include personal interviews, long- and short-form stories and photos with a call to action to help save our oceans and save lives.

DRIVING MEMBERSHIP, REVENUE

As part of its ongoing, two-year old campaign, The Nature Conservancy has added an informational slide show to its Coral Reefs landing page.The inclusion of the Coral Reefs campaign in the organization’s annual Mother’s Day email promotion resulted in a 50% increase in gift memberships and a 35% jump in revenue, from 2010 to 2011.

In 2012, the same Mother’s Day promotion was even more impressive: a 93% boost in gift memberships and a 125% increase in revenue from 2011 to 2012.

Given the multifaceted elements of the campaign, the story continues to have legs.

Winters says she’s just scratched the surface with print media, while other broadcast outlets are being explored for potential coverage. “We’re trying to be strategic with this, because there’s a potential of raising millions of dollars over the next few years,” Winters says.

Crisley agrees. With the story now two years old, TNC is planning for the next iteration, “the 2.0 version,” as she put it. They’ll be looking for new spokespeople and new vehicles to employ to get the story out.

Those have yet to be determined, but if 2.0 is as good as 1.0, the TNC could be in for another windfall. PRN

CONTACT:

Contact: Kerry Crisley, [email protected]; Rachel Winters, [email protected].

4 Tips for Cultivating a Compelling Long-Term Story

When Kerry Crisley, associate director of strategic communications at The Nature Conservancy, first came up with the idea to marry coral reef protection with life-saving cancer drugs in 2011, little did the organization know that the campaign built around that story would still have some pop two years later. But a story must have the right components to make a long-term play with the media and the public. Here’s four tips from Crisley on creating a story that resonates:

1. Meet people where they are: “Everyone appreciates conservation, but that’s not the first thing that comes to mind for people who are busy,” Crisley says. “We considered the earth in terms of how it can improve lives, making the message more personal.”

2. Add a face to the message: “Find a person who exemplifies your story, and get that person on camera,” she says. In TNC’s case, it was Arden O’Connor, a woman battling cancer, who was being treated with a drug derived from coral reefs.

3. When an idea takes off, don’t hesitate to go big: “The videos we made were just the beginning. Media relations, our website and social media all have played a part in getting this message across,” Crisley says.

4. The more evergreen the story the better: “When we find new spokespeople, or if a new drug from coral reefs comes on the market, we’ll have this story to tell once again,” she says.