WWF: Where Is The Eagle?

Name	Position	Company
Edson Athayde	Creative Director	Ogilvy Portugal
Joгo Flores	Copywright	Ogilvy Portugal
Francisco Serra e Melo	Art Director	Ogilvy Portugal

The eagle is in danger of becoming extinct in Portugal. The WWF wants the Portuguese people to be more aware of this situation. As the eagle is also the mascot of Benfica which is the largest Portuguese football club and one of the largest in the world with 6 million fans around the planet, the idea is to use a championship game to create an event called "Eagle Day" to get people's attention.

With the help of some accomplices from the country's major newspapers and TV channels we spread a false story that the Benfica mascot eagle, called Victoria, had disappeared. The next game would pay homage to the eagle and the event would be called "Eagle Day". Everyone's attention on the day was on the possibility of Victуria reappearing. The stadium dйcor and the players' shirts all had the eagle missing from the Benfica emblem. At the end of the ploy, the eagle flew across the stadium and down to the club emblem starting the game and a great festival.

The whole country was touched by the teaser with the false story about the eagle's disappearance in the main newspapers and TV and radio stations. The "Eagle Day" event was witnessed directly by the tens of thousands in the stadium on the day and was a national news item seen and heard by millions around the country.

The WWF and Benfica called everyone's attention to the objectives of this action through tens of thousands of leaflets handed out at the stadium gates, and broadcast on the internal sound system and the Mega screens. The free media coverage before, during and after the action represented an investment of over 2 million euros. Hundreds of sites, blogs and mails helped spread news of the event and the cause far and wide.