Branding the Elephant Gathering - How it came about

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.

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
1.	Appetite: There must be an appetite for the product.
2.	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.
3.	Significance: Ascertain the story’s significance in an international context. E.g. ‘Largest annual concentration of wild elephants in the world’.
4.	Media brief: Put together a credible media brief or story.
5.	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.
6.	Media Campaign: Launch an extensive and long-running media campaign around a sellable product.
7.	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.

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.