PETA2
The Challenge
PETA is well-known for its mastery of the media, and has proven itself particularly adept in the art of reaching youth audiences. PETA's peta2.com site was launched in 2002 specifically to reach out to teens and motivate them to act on behalf of animals. With a slogan of "Question Authority" and a hip, streetwise look and tone, the site offers teens and college students: animal rights information, activism kits, community interaction, and the opportunity to join the peta2 "Street Team" of volunteer youth animal advocates.
After the site's launch, PETA used direct outreach as its primary strategy for recruiting new members to the peta2 Street Team, including:
- holding online contests and giveaways for products such as non-animal-tested cosmetics or signed merchandise from bands that support peta2
- attending youth-oriented music festivals and other events and registering attendees for its e-newsletter
As a result, peta2 grew by 900 members per month following its launch. By 19 months after launch, 17,000 Street Team members had signed up.
But PETA's Youth Division hoped to find better and more direct ways of reaching new audiences and recruiting new members in larger numbers. "Using traditional tactics, such as e-mail marketing, we were able to motivate and retain our members, but getting new members on board was not as easy," says Dan Shannon, PETA's manager of Youth Outreach and Campaigns.
The Youth Division needed to find more ways to recruit new supporters from the ranks of a generation that had grown up on the Internet. What it discovered was that it needed to reach young people where they "live."
