Mobile Case Study
March 2011
PETA Texts “Y” to Stop Cruelty
Animal Activist Drives Members to Get Involved Via Mobile
THE GOAL
PETA spurred its mobile subscribers to action using the
To activate members sending Action Alerts in support of
animal rights, PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of
Animals) designed a compelling mobile program that
inspired digital and mobile activism.
following message flow:
THE FIRST CAMPAIGN
PETA’s first campaign launched as an innovative solution
to help support one of the organization’s anti-fur
initiatives. PETA sent an SMS message requesting that
mobile subscribers reply “Y” to urge designer Donna
Karan to stop using fur.
Replying “Y” to the text message triggered PETA’s CRM
system to send an email to Donna Karan on behalf of the
subscriber. The subscriber then received a personal
email that confirmed message delivery and offered
several additional ways to get involved, including making
a donation, signing up to join PETA’s Action Team,
forwarding the email to friends and texting PETA to
73822 to join PETA’s urgent alerts mobile list.
This compelling and novel approach allowed the
organization to reach members no matter where they
were and gave PETA’s supporters a way to effortlessly
act on causes they felt passionately about.
THE TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION
PETA selected Waterfall Mobile to provide the
technology for the mobile activism campaign. Waterfall
empowers brands, agencies and technology companies
to manage digital messaging and subscribers across
mobile and social channels. The Waterfall Platform
enhances these channels with seamless integration of
mobile web, video, coupons, QR codes and direct
targeting tools such as subscriber preferences, location
and demographics.
PETA chose to integrate the Waterfall Platform into its
existing CRM to gain a more comprehensive view of their
constituents’ digital activity. When members replied “Y”
to send the message to Donna Karan, the integrated
system matched mobile numbers with subscriber profiles.
This allowed PETA to send personalized messages to
participants, deliver targeted follow-up emails, track the
additional ways people took action and grasp the
interplay between mobile and email messaging.
Donna Karan is a bunny butcher! Reply Y to
this msg & we’ll send a msg from you telling
her execs to dump fur once & for all. Thank
you. <3 PETA
Y
Thank you for telling Donna Karan that
cruelty to animals is unacceptable! Fur Free
Friday is 11/26 - visit http://peta.org to find
an event near you. <3 PETA
With the power of mobile, PETA personally engaged its
membership across the country and gave supporters the
ability to have a voice in the fur debate.
CAMPAIGN RESULTS
The Donna Karan campaign solidified mobile’s value as a
platform for inspiring digital activism and engaging end
users. Using a smart and elegant approach, PETA
activated its target audience and returned amazing
results.
According to the Direct Marketing Association (2010),
the average e-mail marketing conversation rate is 1.73%.
So, imagine the reaction when PETA's mobile campaign
experienced an 18.5% conversion rate. On top of that,
43.3% of those who took action did so within two minutes
of receiving the text.
PETA also pushed a similar correspondence out to its
larger PETA2 subscriber database. This garnered a
nearly 6% response rate, again a much higher conversion
than email marketing.
In fact, the conversion rate for PETA’s first test was so
high that the organization immediately made plans to use
a similar strategy for other initiatives going forward.
BEYOND THE FIRST CAMPAIGN
With the success of the first campaign targeting Donna
Karan, PETA adopted a similar strategy that encouraged
members to target the University of Michigan,
CareerBuilder and Coach House Gifts using the Reply Y
approach. Sure enough, the passionate activist base
responded.
In January, PETA texted mobile subscribers requesting
that they take action against the University of Michigan
for its animal testing practices. Similar to before,
subscribers received the following message flow:
The University of Michigan has been
conducting cruel experiments on cats & pigs!
Reply Y to this msg & we’ll send a msg from
you urging UofM 2 stop testing on animals.
<3 PETA
PETA2 list, uploaded to Waterfall from lists PETA
previously had built, did contain some outdated
information. Even with this being the case, the PETA2 list
continues to average a 6% engagement rate for members
— much higher then traditional marketing engagement
returns.
-TECHNOLOGY USED
Waterfall Mobile (www.waterfallmobile.com)
Y
Thank you for telling UofM that cruelty to
animals is unacceptable <3 PETA
Like Donna Karan, the UofM campaign returned an
impressive reaction, registering a 23.58% response rate.
PETA then blasted the message to its larger PETA2
mobile list and received, once again, a near 6%
conversion.
For its campaign against CareerBuilder, PETA informed
members of CareerBuilder’s plans to air an ad featuring
chimps during the Super Bowl. Subscribers this time
received the message:
Help chimps! CareerBuilder plans to air an ad
during the Super Bowl & we need ur help!
Reply Y to send CareerBullies a msg to keep
chimps out of ads. <3 peta2
This call to action, sent to the larger PETA2 list, yielded
another 6% response rate of subscribers opting to tell
CareerBuilder to stop using chimps in advertising. After
the Super Bowl, PETA then called on its smaller PETA list
to relay their thoughts on the ad to CareerBuilder: 18.37%
responded to the text and sent CareerBuilder a
message expressing their concerns.
Finally, PETA used the same technology to request that
mobile subscribers tell Coach House Gifts to stop
harming frogs. This campaign received a colossal
response rate of 24.85% – the largest to date.
Furthermore, PETA’s mobile lists consistently grew with
each mobile campaign. PETA’s PETA list was organically
grown, starting when the animal activist first jumped into
mobile. Its subscriber base consists of a targeted group
and overall continues to demonstrate impressive
engagement rates ranging from 18 to 25 percent. The
ABOUT PETA
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), with more
than 2 million members and supporters, is the largest animal
rights organization in the world.
PETA focuses its attention on the four areas in which the
largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the
longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the
clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry. PETA also
works on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of
beavers, birds and other "pests," and the abuse of backyard
dogs. PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations,
research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity
involvement, and protest campaigns.
ABOUT WATERFALL MOBILE
Waterfall Mobile, the leader in digital messaging and CRM, has
revolutionized the way companies manage communications
with their end users. Waterfall empowers carriers, brands,
agencies and technology companies to manage digital
messaging and subscribers across mobile and social channels,
including SMS, MMS, mobile apps, voice, Facebook and Twitter.
The Waterfall Platform enhances these channels by
coupling seamless integration of mobile web, video, coupons
and QR codes, with direct targeting tools such as location,
demographic and user preferences.
Waterfall’s enterprise customers include Anheuser-Busch,
Nokia, Ubisoft, iconmobile, Phonevalley, Participant Media, and
the California Community College system. Backed by Vista
Equity Partners, Waterfall is headquartered in San Francisco
with sales offices in New York and Austin. For more information,
please visit www.waterfallmobile.com.