The Prince’s Rainforests Project, set up by HRH The Prince of Wales, aimed to create awareness of deforestation in the run up to The Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. We aimed to create mass awareness for the campaign by dominating the online news agenda in both the UK and US at launch with an online Royal first. HRH The Prince of Wales launched a simulcast on YouTube and MySpace.We created a social media based movement to support the campaign through working with influential bloggers and creating a vigorously maintained social media profile on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Twitter which actively engaged and informed fans/ friends/followers.

Celebrities, organisations and media partners who supported the cause were encouraged to use their social media presence and websites to promote the campaign.

‘Talkability factor’ tools such as a programme enabling people to create a ‘frog’ video of themselves using webcam footage, helped maintain interest and generated sign-ups.

As a result the campaign secured editorial coverage on over 40,000 blogs and over 8,000 news websites, with a further 19,469 editorial mentions. Over 250,000 people signed up to the petition, and deforestation was tabled as an agenda item at the Copenhagen climate change talks.

The campaign aimed to call young people to action to sign up to support emergency action to address rainforest destruction.While we recognised that the environment and the plight of the rainforests were already much debated online, harnessing good will and genuinely cutting through online noise with clear messaging and a call to action would not be easy.We aimed to dominate the online news agenda with a launch which would maximise access and assets.

The campaign launched with a groundbreaking simulcast from HRH The Prince Charles of Wales on YouTube and MySpace. Messages of dedication were created as collateral to recruit sign up and engagement with the campaign from the likes of The Dalai Lama and Harrison Ford.To maintain campaign momentum, entertaining short-form films and content featuring the campaign emblem, an animated frog, were filmed and distributed exclusively to a number of online media partners and ambassadors.

A US/UK social media-based movement to support the campaign working with bloggers and maintaining profiles in Facebook/MySpace/Bebo/Twitter which actively engaged and informed fans, friends and followers.The campaign team encouraged celebrities, organisations and media partners to use their social media presence and websites to promote the campaign. Tools with a high ‘talkability factor’ were employed: a programme allowing people to create a ‘frog’ video of themselves on the site helped maintain interest, whilst also generating sign-ups.

Editorial media value of £7,401,196, delivering a return on investment of 195:1.OTS: 158,615,489, with a total number of editorial mentions at 19,469.Editorial coverage secured on over 40,000 blogs and over 8,000 news websites.35,431 fans/followers/friends on Social Media sites.Respective tweets of celebrities, including Vivienne Westwood and Jonathan Ross, reached over 20 million people.Over 250,000 people signed up to send an SOS to world leaders to stop climate change.Video clips relating to the campaign, created to maintain online interest, received over 5.4 million views.

On the morning of the 16th December 2009, as a direct result of our actions, The Prince of Wales took to the stage at the UN Climate Summit and made the keynote speech. He talked about rainforest preservation and the importance of getting a result from these talks. Rewind the clocks a year. Deforestation was not even tabled as an agenda item.

The strategy aimed to see HRH The Prince of Wales embrace online communications in a way which in itself would be newsworthy; to create a genuine media first and harness the power of online PR.In an innovative first for the British monarchy, the campaign launched with a ground breaking simulcast from HRH on YouTube and MySpace, calling young people to an online petition at rainforestsos.org. Short messages of dedication, from celebrities including Daniel Craig and Robin Williams were created as collateral to attract additional sign ups. To maintain momentum, entertaining short-films and content featuring the campaign emblem, an animated frog, were filmed and distributed exclusively to a number of online media partners and ambassadors.Social media profiles were vigorously maintained; actively engaging and informing fans/friends/followers. Celebrities, organisations and media partners were encouraged to support the cause through their websites and social media presence.

The Prince’s Rainforests Project was a campaigning organisation set up by HRH The Prince of Wales to raise awareness of the damaging effects of deforestation and to identify appropriate incentives that will encourage rainforest nations to stop burning down vast areas of valuable forests.We were asked to use digital communications on behalf of The Prince’s Rainforests Project to raise worldwide awareness of the link between rainforests and climate change from April 2009 until The Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December 2009.