Cisco is a multinational tech company. They develop, manufacture and sell networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment and other high-technology services and products.

Millions know of Cisco, far fewer know that they’re one one of the world’s top providers of innovative technology designed to protect endangered animals.

We wanted to tell their stories.

‘Save This Shark’ is the second of a series of films that sheds light on the passion and values of a company committed to technologically protecting animals both land and sea before they ultimately become extinct - especially as shark tracking was non-existent before their involvement - so Cisco created it. After all, you can’t save an endangered creature if it’s somewhere within millions of square miles of deep ocean.

One of the world’s top surfers, Mick Fanning, was famously filmed in a shark encounter at J-Bay in 2015, an encounter which still haunts him.

This was a personal (and life changing journey) for Mick to understand exactly what happened that day in 2015 - and at the same time, see the danger sharks are in today due to culling and climate change.

With the help of worldwide experts from marine biology and Cisco, Mick realises that sharks are in greater danger from us than we ever were from them.

Three time world surfing champion Mick Fanning was an obvious choice for the film. His encounter was seen worldwide by millions, and his reputation as an ocean advocate is widely known. But Mick had rarely talked about the hesitance of sharks that has emerged post event.

We filmed him meeting experts in Australia and America to learn about sharks - these experts included such luminaries as the ‘Mother of Sharks’ Cristina Zenato, Australian artist Amy Shark and the creator of the shark cage, Rodney Fox. With the vast success of ‘Shark Week’, we were creating a film that was designed to reach a wide audience.

The film is now played in schools as part of the Australian curriculum, but it was also written to talk to the generation still haunted by ‘Jaws.’

Once the film was completed, we had a strategic timeline in place to gain maximum results. We dropped the trailer of the film on Mick Fanning's five-year anniversary at J-Bay (where he had his famous shark encounter). From there, we locked in master interviews with all major media outlets (including a special on 60 minutes) and a junket day to gain maximum coverage. This led to strong coverage before our release date in September 2020 where we had live QNAs on social media platforms to reach our younger generations and keep momentum of the film going.

The programme was licensed to National Geographic in Australia (unlimited runs), and Outside TV in the U.S (unlimited runs).