About five years ago, try as I might to find an elephant in London to take part in a PR photo stunt we were organising, there was none available. Our need was great – promote the Chivas World Elephant Polo Championships due to be held that November in Nepal. Scotland were at the time, defending World Champions in the sport (true fact.) Anyway, London Zoo weren’t up for lending out their eles, we couldn’t locate any in the Yellow pages so alas, the photo was a no go. I don’t think Scotland retained the title either (I don’t hold us responsible for that mind).
Fast forward to June 2010 and everywhere you look in London, there are elephants. You can barely move without bumping into one.
So what’s occurring? Turns out the Elephant Parade London 2010 is a conservation campaign, in aid of the Elephant Family charity set up by Mark Shand, involving 258 brightly painted life-size elephants located over central London with the aim of raising over £2mn towards the conservation of the endangered Asian elephants. Tidy.
As it turns out, 258 elephant sculptures = London’s largest outdoor art exhibition on record.
They may not have been in town in 2005 when we really needed them but they are at least here now, for one more week. And over the last 5 weeks, I have been slowly gripped by some unexplainable elephant obsession. Out of nowhere. Strange but true.
It all started innocently enough.
08.03, Tuesday 4 May 2010, stepping off the Leicester – St Pancras train, I suddenly realised that I’d walked past a giant elephant statue (‘Dandiphant’, I later found out). Unusual, elephant art. Not something you see everyday next to British Rail’s finest.
Throughout May, I continued to notice elephants around town (they’re hard to miss) and soon found myself whooping with joy on seeing a new undiscovered ele – which whilst on a scooter is a truly great feeling - although not one that is widely encouraged in the Highway Code as a means of responsible motorcycle driving. The elephant observing shifted up a gear – spending one Sunday afternoon cycling round London to see which ones we happened across. A great way to combine seeing the city in the sunshine with getting fit. All innocent fun.
I dropped into one of the 4 London pop-up Elephant Parade shops (it’s all about pop-ups these days) and found an official map which marked out where they could all be found. And things changed. The map proved a dangerous addition to my armoury. It became serious. I was soon on a mission to tick off (& photograph) all of them. Why I have no idea but joined by like-minded friends, and at times on my own, the past few weeks has involved dedication, effort and organisation, missed lunch hours, late nights and getting myself to places in London that I have never heard of, never mind visited before.
As a tourism campaign to get people experiencing the city of London, Visit London could do a whole lot worse. That has been one of the absolute pleasures in finding the elephants – I have got to know the city in which I have lived for over 10 years a whole lot better. I now know where one can find the Museum of London (the Docklands), Bow Churchyard, The Hempel and The Hoxton (both lovely hotels), BT’s Building (as opposed to its Tower), the National Geographic Store on Regent Street, the Royal Exchange and where you can park a scooter right next to Somerset House. I have seen Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park in full flow (fascinating), marvelled at the current installation on the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square, walked the length of Baker Street (following Sherlock Holmes’ footsteps) and witnessed the beauty of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.
I have found myself in some unexpected places at unpredictable hours. One Monday night I cycled solo to both Brixton and Elephant & Castle (an aptly named place to house one of the statues) well after 10pm, two areas I barely know and probably wouldn’t ordinarily try and navigate around in the dark, solely to find 2 elephants. And after a recent Keane gig in Camden, we employed that ‘oh so normal’ post-gig wind down technique of walking around Leicester Square, Covent Garden & Piccadilly until 1am when we ran out of elephants (20 ticked off in record time) and our feet could take no more. Dedication to the cause or just sheer madness? You decide.
It has been an adventure, albeit an exhausting mission and I have met some dedicated fellow hunters (okay, I’ll admit some have been, shall we say, a little odd but most seem fairly normal) on the way. Equally eye opening has been witnessing first hand how social media communities truly engage in real time interaction on a subject in which they are passionate. Take the Facebook group for the Elephant Family and Elephant Parade group, a hotbed of activity with over 14,000 fans. “Anyone tell me where you can find the Ella May elephant – she’s not on Baker Street and is proving elusive?” Within minutes, 6 people have already replied with the answer. Job done. Fellow elephant fans, who have never, and will never meet in real life, helping each other out in their time of need, with UGC (mainly still images) uploaded on a minute by minute basis.
As PR goes, I’m a big admirer of the campaign. A simple idea with creativity at the heart in aid of a good cause with the actual product they’re promoting (the future of the Asian Elephant) at the very core of the activity.
Add to that, a few simple PR tactics that have been very well executed:
1. Launch photocall of brightly coloured elephant herd in Trafalgar Square pre-installation – tick
2. Interviews with famous and upcoming artists & celebrities who have painted the elephants (Tommy Hilfiger, Paul Smith, Matthew Williamson, Sir Terence Conran…) – tick
3. Locate elephants at various iconic London landmarks / institutions who then add their own PR weight behind it – tick
4. Grip the public’s imagination (kids & adults alike) by introducing Cloudia (the ‘Where’s Wally?’ of the elephant world) to the herd, the elephant that is constantly on the move – tick
5. Ensure your social media ducks (sorry, eles) are all in place to enable the online community to do the rest – tick
6. Merchandise the hell out of it – produce replica elephants, books, cards etc to ensure product sales generate funds of their own – tick
Of the features in the press, one I particularly liked was the story about Gerald, the model elephant who generated a cult following after he was banned from his original home in Selfridges for being too risqué. Gerald is blue (quite literally it turns out on closer inspection), painted by controversial artist Jonathan Yeo who added his trademark collage, causing serious offense to the shoppers of W1. After a “Free Gerald” Facebook group was set up to free him from the charity’s Bloomsbury HQ, sniffing some free publicity, Chinawhite offered their nightclubbing HQ to home the pornographic beast. Bob’s your uncle, queues of people trying to get into the night spot between 1-2pm every weekday to see the elephant and tick it off their lists. Genius.
On a serious note, the joie de vivre these elephants have spread throughout London disguise the real tragedy behind the Asian Elephant’s collapse. Once ranging from China to Thailand, Indonesia, India and across Syria, these great animals are now confined to an area the size of Spain. The number of Asian elephants has dwindled even more severely than those of the African elephant, from 200,000 a century ago to a fifth of that population now. Shocking statistics.
So my own breaking news, having confessed that I quite fancied trying to see them all before they vanished from our streets, is that I have now officially seen all 258 ‘in the wild’. Marc Quinn’s Untitled in Somerset House was my final ele. Job done, mission completed. Difficult to narrow down my favourites, there really were too many. Special mention goes out to ‘Help!’ the fully turfed elephant, ‘Dedicated to the Wonderful Chelsea Pensioners’ elephant (too cute), ‘Union Jack ‘(Rule Britannia) and Benjamin Shine’s glossy black ‘Taxi Elephant’, ideally positioned by the Royal Exchange and powered by a solar cell so that the taxi sign lights up at night and its eyes turn into headlamps. Truly London.
Sadly the city migration is well underway and this week, the elephants can all be seen herded together at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea and Westfield Shopping Centre for general viewing before they go under the auction hammer. If you haven’t seen them yet, they are seriously worth a look. Some are absolutely stunning works of art.
As for me, I’m having a break from elephants. For a start, I don’t trust myself not to get carried away with it all and buy one of the statues at auction – and with some of the bids already exceeding £50k online, that is an experience that I’m not quite ready to blog about.
No, it’s all about lions now. Like all great ideas, copycats are out there and rife. Cue the city of Bath announcing that a giant pride of individually decorated, life-size lion sculptures are taking up residence in and around the City of Bath. With only 100 lions to find, I reckon it’s do-able in record time. Anyone who fancies a safari trip down in Bath this summer, let me know. Or if you’re a fellow (adopted) digital native, you’ll probably be able to find me on the Pride in Our City – Lions of Bath group on Facebook…
By Stephanie Branston on June 22nd, 2010
Tags: Alcohol, Digital marketing, Media, Public relations, Sponsorship, The Arts
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