The Worldwide Fund for Nature: Case Study

An excerpt from an assessment of the foundation

By: Samantha Torres

Objective:
The Worldwide Fund for Nature’s (WWF) is an organization that is committed to
nature conservation of forests, fresh water, and marine areas in order to develop
“harmony between man and nature.” In this case, WWF needed to decide which one of
the three potential corporate partnerships should be pursued while at the same time
considering the future of the WWF brand in terms of re-branding and the effects of these
potential partnerships.

WWF’s Problems:
WWF’s problems fell into three general areas: fundraising, re-branding, and
potential mission drift. In the beginning of the organization’s life and particularly during
the 1980s, it was especially easy to receive funds from several of its target groups.
However, beginning in the 1990s and going into the 2000s, they found it harder to raise
funds. Although the World Summit on Sustainable Development found that companies
were beginning to increase their awareness of environmental conservation, at the same
time, individuals lessened their contributions and competition from the growing number
of global and single issue non-governmental organizations (NGO) became a factor.
As a result of increased competition from NGOs like Greenpeace and Conservation
International (as shown in Exhibit 9), WWF was forced to focus on re-branding; the
second problem that resulted in part from difficulties in fundraising. The re-branding
process resulted in potential mission drift that largely came from increased partnerships
with medium and large corporations. This issue will be further discussed in the
“Assessing WWF’s Effectiveness” section.

Targeting and Segmentation:

The organization had a wide range of target groups. This included the general
public, media, WWF members and staff, businesses, foundations, government agencies,
other NGOs and communities that were impacted by their work. For each of these target
groups, the message and brand meaning differed depending on the country’s perception
of the organization itself. Due to ongoing changes among these groups and other global
issues, going into the new millennium, WWF focused more on corporate partnerships.

Market Analysis:
In the early life of WWF, individual contributors were easy to come by. Funds
from the growing base allowed WWF to cover basic administration needs especially as
WWF increased its conservation efforts during the 1980s. However, due to increased
competition from other NGOs and effects of the changing world economy on individual
incomes, individual members were less likely to contribute. Although WWF was able to
retain most of its members and upgrade their membership levels, they were not as
successful at accumulating more members. As a result, the attention began to shift
beginning in the late 1980s from individual memberships to corporate partnerships.

Communication:
In the 1980s, WWF was successful in communicating through cold mailing. For
instance, as Exhibit 8 shows, postcards were sent to leads and members. This allowed
WWF to connect with these individuals through emotional appeal. However, going into
1990s, a letter or postcard was no longer as effective. In turn, in the 2000s, WWF focused
more on communication through the WWF international website. Other communication
was done through aiding policy changes, coordinated campaigns, TV commercials, and
educational programs; all of which will be further discussed in the following section.

Distribution Channels
Communication for WWF’s cause covered a wide range of areas. First, for each
national organization, distribution channels differed depending upon what was most
effective for the area. To reach the various target areas, field projects, educational
programs, and coordinated campaigns between WWF International and at the national
level were created. They also aided the creation of policies such as the Kyoto Protocol
and the Amazon Protection Plan; both of which were aimed at energy conservation.
Second, as stated in the previous section, as cold mailing in the form of postcards and
letters began to decline in its effectiveness, WWF had to utilize other forms of
communication in order to set itself apart from the emerging NGOs. For instance, during
the 1990s TV ads were utilized in the Netherlands while WWF educational materials
were more prevalent in Switzerland. They also increased their use of the internet. With
300,000 hits a week, the WWF International site allowed for them to build a base of
international members even as overall membership declined to some extent.
Finally, WWF decided to expand corporate partnerships. This allowed WWF to
communicate through the companies in terms of influencing the companies to change
operating procedures in order to be more environmentally friendly. Such partnerships also
allowed for WWF to expand its goal of conservation through businesses, which have a
great effect on the world as a whole. Furthermore, those who supported the businesses
that WWF partnered with were more likely to increase awareness of the organization and
possibly support the organization through monetary means.

Assessing WWF’s Effectiveness:

Since they felt that the original name, World Wildlife Fund, no longer reflected
the scope of its activities, they changed the organization’s name to the Worldwide Fund
for Nature (with the exception of the US and Canada, where the old name remained).
While the new name did reflect the new goals of the organization, it would have been a
more efficient branding tactic if the name was used worldwide, which would include
changing the name in the US and Canada as well. With the growing sea of NGOs, name
recognition would be better achieved if they had a universal name so that individuals
throughout the world would increase their recognition of the brand.
Since many people often remember images more than they do words, the panda was
especially effective increasing brand recognition. Exhibit 12 supports this by showing
that 79% of survey participants responded well to the logo. Furthermore, awareness of
the logo was at 68% with over 60% associating the logo with WWF. However, going with
the fear that some ”executives worried that the breadth of licensing agreement might
dilute the WWF brand and logo,” WWF should continue to be selective about licensing
the logo. Although the funds that come as a result of licensing the logo are important,
brand integrity should be maintained.
It was essential that WWF recognized how global changes also affected membership
levels and contributions. With this and the fact that corporations became more
environmentally aware, corporate partnerships were a smart move. This not only allowed
WWF to have a greater impact in the business world (who may then affect consumer
behavior), but it also draws attention to the brand among those who were not as aware of
it in the past. It was important that they did not drift from their mission in recognizing
that they should maintain the right to criticize any company’s practices that they partner
with. For instance, in 2000, despite their partnership with LaFarge, they still criticized a
specific project that the company undertook in Scotland.
Finally, even though monetary contributions are important, when pushing the brand of
any nonprofit, it is important that WWF must take into consideration three of the most
important principles of branding:
1. Stay true to the mission. Nonprofits often become preoccupied with increasing
funds, but must also remember that the mission is what makes the organization
successful. Therefore, when taking part in events, licensing the logo, and
accepting funds, WWF must consider how these actions will affect the
organization in terms of contradictions to the mission and its individual
supporters.
2. Be consistent. This principle relates to the first principle in that the message that
WWF is trying to communicate should remain the same throughout the world. In
other words, their mission should not be tweaked based upon potential “big
money” partnerships.
3. Maintain exclusivity. This mainly relates to protecting the logo. Even though
most people can remember an image better than a name, it is still important to
maintain exclusivity of the logo in order to prevent abuse of the logo.
Furthermore, individuals and businesses like to believe that they are the
exception – or that WWF is choosing to partner with them because they are more
desirable than others. Therefore, protecting the logo will attract better offers
because of the exclusivity concept.

Recommendations for WWF’s Future Developments

In terms of the future partnerships and to add to the principles of branding in the
previous section, WWF should consider at least three additional principles when creating
corporate partnerships:
1. Maintain the right to criticize. As WWF has already done, they should continue
to be able to criticize certain practices of a business as they had done with
 LaFarge. This is also important with companies like HSBC who present the risk
of lending to oil companies whose mission conflicts with that of WWF.
Therefore, continuing to be involved with the business practices of their partners
is especially important for WWF.
2. Consider ethnics of potential partners. Although a potential partner may offer a
large amount of monetary support, WWF should consider the ethics of the
organization in terms of its present and future goals in order to ensure that their
missions and goals do not conflict.
3. Maintain expectations.WWF should set strict guidelines as to what they expect
out of the partnership in terms of the partner changing business practices to be
more environmentally friendly and taking action on conservation through more
than monetary support.
Considering these sets of recommended criteria and principles along with WWF’s
goal of “furthering conservation by developing partnerships in order to change company
operations,” of the three potential partnerships, Company A is the best option.
Both Company B and Company C present more prevalent risks that does Company A.
First, Company B may potentially lend to companies that contradict WWF’s mission.
This is a great risk considering the fact that the International Research Associates (INRA)
survey found oil or car companies (potential clients of Company B) were not acceptable
sectors for WWF to associate itself with. Although the company agrees to restrictions on
lending to oil exploration and forest exploitation projects, it is difficult to maintain strict
control over this happening.
Second, with Company C being a mining corporation, their business contradicts
with WWF’s mission. While the funds would come from the company’s charitable
foundation as past funds from companies like Shell and Ford have come from, this still
presents a great risk. Even though WWF could request that the company not develop
activities in certain areas, this would likely only go on for the five years of the
partnership. After terminating the partnership, the company may go onto fall back to
these practices and in effect cancel out the past conservation results. As a result, criticism
of the partnership may come down on WWF; affecting its reputation.
Although the Company A option contradicts with some of the principles above, it
supports the larger contribution with the best partner guidelines in terms of conservation
efforts and changes that they are willing to undertake. While 40% of the $50 million is
restricted to freshwater conservation, the company offers to specifically change more
practices than do the other options. This is an important factor in that it is since they are
only allowed to use the logo after they have met specific goals. Therefore, WWF is able
to protect the logo. They should further restrict this control by enabling approval of when
and where the logo will be used.
For other future developments, though corporate partnerships have proved to be
effective in changing practices, bringing in a ”lump sum of funds," and creating
individual support (i.e. Europeans were generally in favor of these relationships), they
may fail or decrease in the future. Therefore, since some individuals began to view WWF
as a “corporate NGO,” it is important that WWF not forget its base of individual
supporters. They must remain committed to focusing on individuals so that this base can
feel included in conservation efforts through events and educational programs. In doing
so, along with choosing partners who reach a large global audience (as does Company A)
and by continuing to stress field work and research, individual supporters are more likely
to stay committed to WWF.