Labels help save Africa’s elephants

African elephants once roamed the entire continent but demand for ivory, combined with encroaching human settlement, has led to dramatic declines in their populations. In 1930, there were 5-10 million African elephants. By 1979, there were 1.3 million; and in 1989, when added to the endangered species list, the number had dropped to 600,000, around one percent of their original number. Now just 400,000 remain.

Undoubtedly, the future of the African elephant is at a tipping point. Collected data shows that each day almost 100 African elephants are killed by poachers for their ivory, and the species simply cannot survive slaughter on this scale.

Since the inception of Amarula Cream Liqueur, the African elephant and the marula tree have been the brand’s unmistakable symbols. Recognizing the major role played by these elephants in the brand’s amazing global success, the team at Distell conceived a plan to broadcast their plight in a way that would resonate with the international community and rally consumers to their cause.

The result was the ‘Name Them, Save Them’ campaign – a perfect outreach vehicle – to raise awareness of the strong possibility of extinction facing these splendid beasts.

Phase one of the Amarula ‘Name Them, Save Them’ action took off last October with the launch of an online campaign that invited an international audience to visit a digital African savannah where they could create and name a virtual African elephant. Participants could then share their named elephant with friends and fellow conserva­tionists. Distell pledged a 1.00 USD donation to elephant conservation for every digital elephant created.

At a subsequent Duty Free Show in the US, phase two was rolled out, in which the digitalized pachyderms were to be brought to life by printing information about each named animal on 400,000 individualized Amarula labels – one bottle for each remaining African elephant – to be launched in global markets.

Amarula bottles carrying labels printed by Cape Town’s SA Litho (part of the CTP Packaging group), giving the name of each digitalized elephant, will shortly be available in duty-free shops around the world, as well as in domestic markets in South Africa, Germany, Brazil, Canada, the UK and the US.

Enter digital printing technology

The plan was unveiled at a recent Dscoop meeting in Cape Town, where delegates learnt that SA Litho had married its digital printing technology (using an HP Indigo press) with HP SmartStream Mosaic software to produce the 400,000 unique labels required for the campaign.

At the Dscoop meeting the word on everybody’s lips was ‘collaboration’ – what more perfect example can there be of all-round collaboration, when a printer comes up with a creative idea and works with a brand owner to bring it to market?

In this case, much of the praise must be placed at the door of Leon Witbooi, MD of CTP Packaging Western Cape (which includes SA Litho), and Claudia Agostinelli, SA Litho’s brand and communications manager. It was Witbooi’s initiative that saw Agostinelli’s engagement in this role, and charged her with investigating the latent abilities of the Mosaic software. Added plaudits go to Agostinelli for her keen understanding of millennials and how they operate; to HP Indigo’s creative manager Hadar Peled Vaissman for collaborating with Agostinelli on the capabilities of SA Litho’s Indigo press; and to the glue holding the whole project together – Kemtek Imaging Systems, HP’s South African agent.

This innovative partnership between Amarula and SA Litho represents a number of firsts for HP SmartStream Mosaic and digital print technology: Amarula is the first brand to launch a campaign to the African market based on HP SmartStream Mosaic technology, the first alcohol brand to launch a global campaign using Mosaic, and the first time Mosaic has been used for a cause-based campaign. Additionally, this is the first brand campaign in Africa to be printed using an HP Indigo press.