I am often asked about how the Elephant Gathering was branded. I have copied below one of my key articles on it which was published in the Daily FT in 2012. It also includes a post publication commentary on the key stages which I have attached following up on conversations I have had with students studying for MBAs in Business or Marketing who want to understand the process of taking a product to market.
I have also attached a pdf of some of my other articles in relation to The Elephant Gathering, totaling 14 articles. In the early 2000s, Jetwing Eco Holidays and Jetwing Hotels played a key role in developing marketing literature which was prited and distributed at key consumer events such as the British Birdwatching Fair and trade and consumer fairs in London such as World Travel Market (WTM) and Destinations. A Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) branded version was developed of the information brief. This can be downloaded using this link. People are welcome to upload it to private and commercial websites.
I have also attached a pdf of some of my other articles in relation to The Elephant Gathering, totaling 14 articles. In the early 2000s, Jetwing Eco Holidays and Jetwing Hotels played a key role in developing marketing literature which was prited and distributed at key consumer events such as the British Birdwatching Fair and trade and consumer fairs in London such as World Travel Market (WTM) and Destinations. A Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) branded version was developed of the information brief. This can be downloaded using this link. People are welcome to upload it to private and commercial websites.
de Silva Wijeyeratne, G. (2012). Branding Wildlife Brands. The Elephant
Gathering. Daily FT. Thursday 27 September 2012. Tourism and Sustainable
Energy Supplement. Page 12.
A road map to build wildlife brands and monetise wildlife
Post publication summary
- The
article below explains the stages involved in bringing a wildlife ‘story
to market’.
- It
explains the difference between a ‘stand alone’, possibly random wildlife
encounter versus collating a body of credible data, connecting the dots
and proving an insight into a big picture story that has international
significance.
- The key
stages articulated in this article for building wildlife brands are as
follows.
Stages in developing and branding wildlife products
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1.
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Appetite: There must be an appetite for the product.
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2.
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The Three Es: Establish the encounter rate, encounter time and
encounter zone using data collection in the field. The data may establish a
new hypothesis or verify an existing hypothesis.
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3.
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Significance: Ascertain the story’s significance in an
international context. E.g. ‘Largest annual concentration of wild elephants
in the world’.
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4.
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Media brief: Put together a credible media brief or story.
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5.
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Tagline: Develop and a branding tagline. Ideally it should
succinctly convey the key message on what is to be seen and why it is good.
E.g. ‘Best for Blue Whale’. Let it evolve in response to market feedback and knowledge
of its international significance.
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6.
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Media Campaign: Launch an extensive and long-running media
campaign around a sellable product.
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7.
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Co-champions: Share the workload of the campaign with one or more
other champions so that it is sustained until there is take-up by consumers
and tour operators.
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The Original Article
The Elephant Gathering is the
largest annually recurring gathering of wild elephants anywhere in the world. In
2011it was listed by Lonely Planet as amongst the top ten wildlife spectacles
in the world. In the same year, the British publication Wild Travel included it in the list of top 100 natural events to see.
This article, using the Elephant Gathering as an example, illustrates the key stages
in branding and marketing a wildlife event as an internationally-significant
event. It was the same generic process with established Sri Lanka as the top
spot for Leopard Safaris and Blue Whales.
Let me summarise the key stages. Firstly,
there must be an appetite for the product. Secondly, one needs to establish the
encounter rate, encounter time and encounter zone using data collection in the
field. The data may establish a new hypothesis or verify an existing
hypothesis. Thirdly, one needs to ascertain the story’s significance in an
international context. Fourthly, one needs to put together a credible media
brief or story. Fifthly, a branding tagline. Sixthly, launch an extensive and
long running media campaign around a sellable product. Finally, share the campaign
with one or more other champions so that it is sustained until there is take up
by buyers. Then, of course, there is the element of luck and timing.
When I first visited Minneriya,
the local safari operators knew that elephants could be seen on the lake bed in
the dry season. They would drive onto the lake bed and show the first group of
elephants they came across. Job done, they would drive back. Whether they saw five
elephants or ten elephants, they went away happy. I pieced together the story
that it was the largest annually recurring gathering of elephants in the world.
Fortunately, I was joined in the campaign to brand it as an event at an early
stage by Srilal Miththapala and Chitral Jayatilake.
The three of us drew upon these seven
stages of branding to elevate merely seeing a handful of elephants into an
internationally-branded event. It needed a team of product developers from the
city who had the right connections in the travel industry, and local and
international media. It’s unlikely that any of the local safari operators could
have envisioned the branding and would have had the connections to make it
happen.
I first heard about elephant
watching at Minneriya when I was visiting from London to research A Birdwatcher’s Guide to Sri Lanka
published by the Oriental Bird Club in 1997. On that visit, I was told the ‘dirt
roads’ were waterlogged and there was no access. The assumption was that the
elephants were there, but the jeeps could not get to them. I subsequently
explained what was really happening. During the wet season, there is a degree
of dispersal by the elephants, whilst during the dry season, a larger number
converges together. In December 1999, I returned to Sri Lanka for eleven years.
I was keen to see the elephants at Minneriya and Kaudulla and subsequently took
a local safari during the dry season. We came across a relatively large group
of around twenty elephants. The job done, most of the safari vehicles turned
back with the tourists; however, I asked our driver to take me along the length
of the park.
This is where luck comes in. I
was the right man in the right place that day. I was a science enthusiast and,
by the age of fifteen, I had read up on census techniques. As we drove, I began
to count, 20, 30, 70, etc. I realised that particular day that there were over a
hundred elephants on the lake bed. I was excited. Perhaps this could become an important
eco-tourism spectacle such as the doomed elephants, around a hundred, which
once gathered at Handapanagala in the the late1980s.
I began to visit Minneriya on
holidays when I was working for a bank and later, more frequently when I joined
the conglomerate Jetwing. One day, I estimated around 300 elephants. That was
exceptional. But it was not unusual to have days when I transacted the length
of the lake bed to count over 200 elephants or have 100 in the field of view. I
realised this was an event possibly bigger than at Handapanagala where elephants
once congregated. I am fairly sure that this was the first realisation by
anyone that this just might be an event worth publicising more widely.
The next step was to put it into
context. Fortunately for me, in 2003, the Biodiversity Conservation Trust had
arranged the ‘Symposium on Human Elephant Relationships and Conflicts’ in
Colombo. Many of the world’s leading authorities on elephants were there, including
Ian Douglas-Hamilton. I was particularly interested in establishing whether
this was the biggest gathering of its kind. Ian Douglas-Hamilton told me of two
ad hoc gatherings of African
Elephants which could number between 400- 500 elephants at times of severe
drought. But it was not recurring in a predictable, annual fashion and could
not be used for tourism.
At the time of the elephant symposium, I had already begun to clumsily brand
it as a ‘Migration of Elephants’ which was not a correct tag line. But
over the next year or two, I refined it and the label, ‘The Gathering’ evolved
and stuck, with a few variations evolving such as the ‘The Elephant Gathering’
which lends more clarity. (After 2010, when I needed to come up with a one-line
summary for the international press, I began to pitch it as the ‘largest annual
gathering of elephants’).
With a context and a branding, I
began writing to explain the phenomenon and to get the story out with local and
foreign media. The publicity was picked on by others in the travel industry, notably
Srilal Miththapala and Chitral Jayatilake, who were both working for big
companies (Serendib Leisure and John Keells respectively). Their involvement
was crucial in the media campaign and also in the product delivery. These two groups
and Jetwing were well resourced with hotel and tour operator divisions. Miththapala,
who was an ‘elephant man’, took up The Elephant Gathering as one of his
personal crusades and had a huge impact on the take-up by the industry and
media. He also began a process for his staff to collect data. Jayatilake led a
very visible commercial campaign for John Keells and also played host to local
and international media.
In 2010, the concept of ‘The
Gathering’ also began to fit into the wider story that Sri Lanka is the best
for big game outside Africa. Although I have taken the lead to craft these big
stories, establishing them is a collective effort involving a large number of
individuals from many sectors.
An understanding of the life
cycle of what one might term ‘eco-tourism product development’ can also help
address some misconceptions. One misconception is that seeing an animal first
means you knew the ‘story’. I was not the first to see Leopards or Blue Whales
in Sri Lanka, but I was certainly the first to ‘market the story’
internationally that Sri Lanka is the best place in the world in which to see
and photograph them. It will be hard to explain to a local who had been showing
elephants at Minneriya or Kaudulla that their seemingly random encounters with
a few elephants at a time does not equate to what is now branded as ‘The Elephant
Gathering’. Making the case for the latter required gathering field data, combined
with an awareness that it could be an internationally-significant tourism
attraction, plus much hard work to promote it as a viable concept.
The publicity around stories like
The Elephant Gathering, Best for Blue Whale, Best for Leopard Safaris, best for
Sperm Whale Super-Pods, etc has a number of other benefits. It inspires an
interest in wildlife and creates an economic case for conservation. It also
draws attention to local scientists who are thrust into the media spotlight.
Acknowledgements
Tara Wikramanayake copy edited
the original draft. Vanessa Williams-Grey edited a revised draft and made
useful suggestions.
