Ogilvy & Mather Vietnam has won a Bronze Lion for its ad campaign “Devalue Rhino Horn” in the PR Lions category at the 2016 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Dr. Lorinda Hern from the Rhino Rescue Project. (Photo: Rhino Rescue Project) 

The Ho Chi Minh-based advertising, marketing and PR firm also took a Silver Lion in the Direct Marketing category.

The campaign aims to encourage people to stop buying or consuming rhino horn and its products with a brilliant idea – devaluing rhino horn by turning it from a “priceless” status symbol into “worthless” poison.

It is part of the Rhino Rescue Project in Vietnam which provides a sustainable, cost effective, proactive defensive strategy to combat the rhino poaching scourge.

In the campaign, the agency collaborated with Dr. Lorinda Hern from the Rhino Rescue Project to infuse South Africa rhino horns with a pyrethroid-based solution that is harmless to rhino, but if consumed by humans, can cause health problems or potentially death.

Since the campaign began last year, fewer than 2 percent of treated rhinos have been poached and Vietnam’s rhino horn consumption has declined by 77 percent.

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for those working in the creative communications, advertising and related fields.

VNA