Mars Inc. are a company routed in purpose. Our global purpose states, 'the world we want tomorrow, starts with how we do business today'. As such, Mars Inc. have signed-up to supporting the UN SDG and together we wanted to use creativity to help unlock the private sector to make a difference. Our objective is huge, to prove that advertising can use its power for good to help save the animal kingdom.

As a global advertiser, we know that animals us sell things. They appear in 20% of all global advertisements. In fact, every year $118 billion is spend on advertising that features animals. But while animals are thriving in advertising, they’re suffering in the real world. 60% of the animal population has been wiped out since 1970. If we don't act now, soon the images of animals will be all that’s left.

The problem we are trying to solve is systemic and requires a global shift versus the work of a few. In order to achieve our goal, we needed the support of the entire communications industry. Equally, we needed the support of global CEOs and CMOs of the world’s largest organisations. This change would affect their bottom line and reduce investment in working media. In a world where marketing budgets are reducing year on year, we needed to appeal to their philanthropic side, and unlock a belief that together we could use the power of brand to make a global impact.

We believed that the Lion’s Share would become the blueprint for how the UNDP could unlock support from the private sector. Given the complexity of requiring large global organisations to sign-up, agility in our model was key to secure signatures from organisations with differing objectives. The first 10 signatures were vital, as this led to donations, which is how we could deliver lasting impact, which we knew would lead to more organisations joining.

The Lion’s share is an initiative that encourages brands and organisations using images of animals in their marketing to donate 0.5% of their media spend to the Lions Share trust. With the help of the United Nations Development Programme, the money is then be dispersed across the world, to save species from extinction, preserve wildlife habitats and look after animal welfare. Through this initiative we're not relying on individual change but galvanising an entire industry to make a global difference.

Our strategy was focussed on securing corporate sign-ups. As such, we needed to ensure our lead business partners not only believed in the Lion’s but also had global scale and the ability to govern and corral fellow corporate giants. We pinpointed Mars Inc. and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as the fundamental signatures - the UNDP to provide governance, impact along with public-facing ambassadors and Mars to help unlock the private sector.

To help secure funding from other private parties, we needed a partner who could quantify our theory. Neilsen was later secured, who confirmed the ‘size of prize’ validating our 0.5% donation figure.

With our lead partners and validation secured, we developed a prospect list leveraging existing relationships and Nielsen’s animal usage data. A large-scale recruitment drive to secure sign-ups commenced with Sir David Attenborough introducing the Lion’s Share to the world in June 2018.

Sir David Attenborough launched Lion’s Share to the world in June 2018. This video was distributed globally in over 100 countries.

Our audience is c-suite executives of the fortune top 100. Our goal was to ensure they received our message in an environment where we could convert. Hence, we used our ambassadors to target events where we knew they’d be in attendance. These included; the United Nations General Assembly, the Social Good Summit, the world Economic Forum and the One Planet Summit.

Media partners were also required to spread our message. The Economist delivered the right audience and donated media in every publication globally since launch. Deutsche Welle also donates five TVC spots weekly reaching 650M households globally.

Our ambassadors have helped deliver coverage on the Ellen Show, BBC, CNN, NBC, Sky, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera and Fox.

Since launch we have signed 50 brands, including: Deutsche Welle, JCDecaux, Kering Group (Gucci, Alexander McQueen), The Economist.

This has secured $16M USD raised.

The proof goes beyond dollars raised and lies in impact we’re having on the natural world. The Lion Share has achieved the following to date:

In Indonesia’s Leuseur Ecosystem, we've purchased 260,000 hectares of rainforest to protect the last remaining Sumatran Tigers, Rhinos and Orangutans.

We’ve digitised all ranger communication technology in Mozambique, to help stop elephant poaching.

To safeguard jaguars in South America, we’re working with 13 countries to develop a sustainable economy not based on jaguar trade.

While in the West Pacific Ocean, we’re restoring the Pacific Ocean coral reef triangle that is helping protect over 2000 species of reef fish. This restoration is also vital for the 120m surrounding people who rely on the coral for their livelihood.