The International Tiger Project launches The Empathy Experiment via Leo Burnett Sydney to raise awareness of the plight of tigers
The International Tiger Project and Leo Burnett Sydney have launched The Empathy Experiment to drive awareness of the critical status of one of the world’s most revered animals.
Although the number of tigers has been dwindling across the globe, the cause has slipped from public view as people find it increasingly difficult to connect with the tiger’s plight.
Drawing on the insight that people donate more when they feel empathy towards a cause led to the creation of the film at the centre of the campaign. It asks both its stars and its viewers to put themselves in the position of the tigers.
To achieve this, International Tiger Project and Leo Burnett employed an unorthodox technique; an approach they knew would divide opinion but also spark debate – hypnosis.
Working with a street casting company and Australia’s leading hypnotist, Peter Powers, they placed volunteers into a hypnotic state and led them to believe they were a family of tigers.
The playful nature of the experiment soon takes a twist, as the family believe they’re being hunted, culminating in the mother tiger being caught in a trap, leaving her young cubs alone to fend for themselves.
Whether you believe the distress and empathy you witness the volunteer mother tiger exhibit, completely depends on your view of whether you believe in hypnosis or not. Either way, this purposefully provocative campaign aims to get people talking.
Says Ian Broekhuizen, creative director at Leo Burnett: “We’ve been working on this passion project for a long time, it’s fortuitous timing for launch as the whole world is talking about the Netflix series The Tiger King.”
Says Malcolm Caldwell, creative director, Leo Burnett: “In the Netflix series, the characters seem to be getting all of the attention, so it’s nice to put the spotlight back on to the tigers themselves.”
Says Leif Cocks, founder and president, International Tiger Project: “At least one tiger a week is killed by poachers and sold to the illegal wildlife trade. Creating empathy between people and other living beings, especially those that are helpless and out of sight, is one of the most important, yet difficult things to achieve. If ‘The Empathy Experiment’ can open the viewer’s heart there’s a chance we can encourage them to make a real difference.”
www.internationaltigerproject.org
Client: International Tiger Project
Founder & President: Leif Cocks
Philanthropy Manager: Marnie Frost
Development Director: Troy Kenah
Creative: Leo Burnett Sydney
CCO: Jason Williams
ECD: Andy Fergusson
ECD: Grant McAloon
ECD: Vince Lagana
Creative Director: Ian Broekhuizen
Creative Director: Malcolm Caldwell
Senior Art Director: Sharon Edmondston
Senior Copywriter: Misha McDonald
Chief Client Partner: Belinda Drew
Connections Strategist: Matt Chisholm
Senior Business Director: Samuel MacDonnell
PR Director: Sarah Rhodes
Senior Broadcast: Producer Tim Pietranski
BTS Content Shooter: Tommy Thoms
Production: FINCH
Director: Nic Finlayson
Producer: Karen Bryson
Managing Director: Corey Esse
Founder: Robert Galluzzo
Casting Director: Antonia Murphy, Fountainhead
Post Production: the editors
Editor: David Whittaker
Grade: Yoomin Lee @ the editors
Exec Producer: Nicoletta Rousianos
Recording Studio: Song Zu
Creative Director: Ramesh Sathiah
Audio Producer: Meg Drummond
Media Agency: Zenith Media
51 Comments
awesome stuff
?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrQMOZwr1QY
Not different.
will be for the ages. Let’s have ’em.
That is insane and weird and awkward
This is the most unintentionally hilarious film I’ve ever seen. I keep expecting Armando Iannucci to pop out and reveal its all a massive pisstake.
Take out the sad piano and add a laughter track and you have the opening to a new satirical show.
I was skeptical at first, then laughed and then it got me. Very powerful.
This is a batshit idea and I love it. We should all be encouraging risks like this.
I had those exact same emotions, but in reverse order.
🙂
I’m tearin up, hilarious. God bless you.
Seems like a case of advertising gone too far.
Doesn’t appear that they’ve considered the potential effects on the cast of “volunteers” that were being hypnotised into a traumatic situation. A quick Google shows it hasn’t been done before so I can’t see how they could have known that anyone involved would be ok after this experiment.
I thought the same. Clicked through toTiger Project youtube page and saw the behind the scenes video.
It legitimises things and eliminates my concerns a little more for me. Should have included it in the press release.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTZUdw5_VH4&feature=emb_title
This is just what everyone needs. This is it. This is the one. Throw grand prix’ at them. Just shower them in trophies. This is the one. It’s over.
Look into my eyes not around the eyes, look into my eyes. You’re under.
You’re going to think this is an amazing creative idea and not the most misguided film you’ve seen in modern times. You will shower it with praise and love and all kinds of shiny trinkets.
3.2.1. You’re back in the room.
Bravo.
Guys, I’ve got the next one. We find a well known and proven medium to possess volunteers with the spirit of dead tigers. Then the well respected medium asks them how it felt to be trapped. You can have that for free.
3ECD’s, a CCO and not a planner in sight…
How long has this been kicking around before they decided to finally release it?
Vince Lagana joined the Monkeys in 2018
And Grant McAloon has been at TBWA Sydney since last year.
That is straight up bizarre. Very strange.
Should do some good.
Heard of this little Netflix documentary called Tiger King?
Stone cold bonkers. What a waste of money. Could have bought a tiger with that budget
This is so bloody wacky.
If it’s real and they’re not just actors, you’ve tortured them.
But i suspect they’re just actors.
I guess on paper this might have seemed interesting but god, to experience, it’s more wild than tigers.
Erm, everybody, they’re using ‘hypnosis’.
It’s not real. People feeling peer pressure to perform. That’s how it works.
To use another animal analogy, it would seem that creatively Leos has jumped the shark.
Now that is p@ss funny, better to go all out wild than go home lame and tame.
hahahaha this is the worst thing ive seen in months.
What would a planner ad aside from a stat she or he found about tigers in the wild.
and more clients like this please
Looks like a lot of comments from people who work for Leos. This is straight up bizarre. If this wins awards, i give up.
Came here for the comments.
Awesome….different. Well done Misha Mcdonald, it’s got your weird thinking written all over it!!!!
but this is terrible in execution. I laughed and not for the right reasons.
I couldn’t take it seriously and stay away creepy hypnosis guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awGUvwNzC4w
WOW….I love this.
Thanks for brightening up these ‘challenging times’ with some truly brilliant humour. I was both pissing myself and slightly aroused at the same time. Well done all!!
Time spent researching mass hypnosis = 5 minutes
Time spent donating to tigers = 0 minutes
This was embarrassing. It looked like a cheap knock off of what the dying whale Sea Shepherd ad achieved so brilliantly a few years back.
The plot thickens. Another credit who has been gone from the agency for some time.
Misha MacDonald has been at TBWA for over two years.
So I ask again, how long has this film been gathering dust on Leo’s shelves and why was it held up so long?
Award idea that no one would buy until Tiger King came along.
This is the kind of misguided project where you might say someone at the agency should be held accountable. But they’ve all left so you can’t.
I sympathise with Leo’s on this. It’s one of those ideas that is probably ok on paper but is an absolute stinker in real life. After years of working on it you lose perspective and can’t see at edit stage that you’ve created a parody.
I feel like I should get some credit for this.
You and everyone else who’s worked at Leo’s in the last 3 years
What the fuck has happened to Leos?
Clawing desperately at awards with an idea that they know won’t make any difference.
It’s being absorbed into one giant mediocre agency over in Pyrmont.
1800 views on YouTube.
53 for the making of.
I’m judging some shows pretty soon.
I’ll remember those numbers when I see the case study.
Cos that’s all this is about.