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January 2008 - Strategy Magazine
Creative

Fur fights back

by Annette Bourdeau
page 13

The fur industry is tired of its bad rap and is ready to fight back.

A new public information campaign from the Montreal-based Fur Council of Canada (FCC) features surprising print executions, including one with a photo of a fur-clad woman with the headline "Environmental Activist!"

The efforts aim to drive traffic to the microsite furisgreen.com, which features a list of the fur industry's

eco-friendly traits like being non-toxic, non-polluting and durable.

"We don't have big budgets, so we put out something unexpected [to generate buzz]," explains Alan Herscovici, EVP at the FCC. "The fur trade has been environmentally sound for quite some time...it seemed important to clarify things."

"There's been quite a strong response," Herscovici continues, adding that it wasn't uncommon for the microsite to get 5,000 unique hits per day in December. "It's at least making people think."

Within one week of launching, the campaign was spoofed on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, much to Herscovici's delight. "They did a spoof, but our messages are there," he says. Herscovici says the campaign has also sparked many discussions in the blogosphere, with some fur foes conceding the campaign raises some valid points.

"A large number of the trappers are aboriginals. They live on the land, and they don't need lectures about caring for nature from urban animal rights activists," says Herscovici.

"A lot of these anti-fur campaigns are extremely insulting."

The campaign was done in-house, in consultation with biologists.

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