Save Our Species
Lacoste2018
Save Our Species is a 2018 limited-edition product for Lacoste, created by BETC, Paris.
Why it works
For the first time in its 85 years, the Lacoste crocodile left the shirt. At Lacoste's Paris Fashion Week show in February 2018, the brand and the IUCN's Save Our Species programme released ten limited-edition polos, each embroidered in the crocodile's style with a critically endangered animal instead. The print run was the message: the number of shirts per species matched the estimated number of animals left in the wild, from 30 for the vaquita porpoise to 450 for the Anegada rock iguana, 1,775 in all. Profits went to IUCN conservation work. The shirts sold out within 24 hours, and the agency says donations to the programme quadrupled during the operation. It is studied as a lesson in spending brand equity: a company known for one logo made that logo's absence the news, and turned limited-edition scarcity, usually a sales tactic, into a literal count of survivors. It won ten Cannes Lions in 2018, including two Golds, and an ADC Gold Cube in 2019.
Techniques
- Purpose and cause Swaps the famous crocodile for endangered animals on limited-edition polos, with profits going to conservation work.
- Logos Matches the number of shirts made for each species to the estimated animals left in the wild, so the print run states the fact.
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