WWF and W+K London launch the first emoji-based fundraising campaign to help support the organisation’s work to protect precious species and their habitats, ahead of Endangered Species Day on Friday 15 May.

The idea for the global #EndangeredEmoji campaign, which is run entirely through Twitter, was sparked by the discovery that 17 characters in the emoji alphabet represent endangered species. WWF is seeking to translate the popularity of these characters into donations. Emoji have been used over 202 million times on Twitter since they were integrated into the platform in April 2014 and the number is increasing daily.

#EndangeredEmoji will be run through the official @WWF Twitter account and at www.endangeredemoji.com. 

Here’s how it works:

• @WWF tweet an image showing all 17 Endangered Emoji. To take part in the campaign, all twitter users need to do is retweet the image.
• For every Endangered Emoji the user then tweets, WWF will add the local currency equivalent of €0.10 to a voluntary monthly donation.
• At the end of each month, users will receive a summary of their Endangered Emoji use, and can then choose how much to donate.

Adrian Cockle, Digital Innovation Manager at WWF International said: “When it comes to fundraising, giving people a simple way to donate is key. By using one of the world’s biggest social platforms to highlight endangered species, we’re hoping to raise vital funds for their conservation as well as raising awareness globally.”

The emoji alphabet contains the following characters representing endangered species:

Spider monkey
Giant panda
Asian elephant
Galapagos penguin
Antiguan Racer snake
Bactrian camel
Tiger
Sumatran tiger
Green turtle
Amur leopard
Siamese crocodile
Bluefin tuna
Blue whale
Western gray whale
African wild dog
Lemur leaf frog
Maui’s dolphin
  
This campaign launched a month after WWF Global Ambassador Andy Murray used emoji to celebrate his wedding to Kim Sears, receiving more than 14,000 retweets.

Influential digital supporters will publicize the campaign by retweeting the original image to their followers, including Xavier Di Petta, creator of @EarthPix and @HistoryInPics. He comments, “Emoji is the first global language and I love that people all over the world can get involved in protecting our planet and the animals we share it with.”

The campaign was developed with technical partner Cohaesus.

A few months ago, W+K creatives and animal lovers Jason and Joris had an idea for using social media to help save endangered species. So we put together a crack team of W+Kers and picked up the phone for a chat with WWF, an organisation we've always admired for its incredible conservation work.

Thankfully, WWF loved it and even agreed to change the organisation's iconic panda logo to a panda emoji. Fast forward to today and we're proud to announce the launch of our global social campaign with WWF and Twitter, created with technical partner Cohaesus.

Launching just ahead of Endangered Species Day this Friday, #EndangeredEmoji is an emoji-based Twitter fundraising campaign designed help support WWF’s work to protect precious species and their habitats.

The idea was sparked by the discovery that 17 characters in the emoji alphabet we use each and every day represent endangered species. Emoji have been used over 202 million times since they were integrated into Twitter in April 2014, and the number is increasing daily; we wanted to translate their ever-growing popularity into vital funds for WWF. 

#EndangeredEmoji is being run through the official @WWF Twitter account and at http://endangeredemoji.com. Here's how it works:

• WWF tweets an image showing all 17 Endangered Emoji (see it here). To take part in the campaign, all twitter users need to do is retweet the image.

• For every Endangered Emoji the user then tweets, WWF will track this and add the local currency equivalent of £0.10 to a voluntary monthly donation

• At the end of each month, users will receive a summary of their Endangered Emoji use, and can then choose how much they wish to donate. 

Want to get involved and help support the campaign? Retweet this image from @WWF to sign up, then Tweet away using these 17 emoji: