Fish Sex & the Nature Restoration Law | WWF European Policy Office

Sex sells: Getting EU policy makers talking about fish sex.

Partner: WWF European Policy Office
Cause: Climate & Biodiversity
Location: EU

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Advocacy & Influence
Digital & Tech
Purpose Advertising & Campaigns

Free-flowing rivers across Europe where migratory fish can not only survive, but thrive. This is utopia for WWF’s European policy team. But there are big things (literally) in the way: dams.

With over a million dams and barriers blocking Europe’s rivers, freshwater migratory fish are unable to swim to their breeding grounds to mate, and are going extinct as a result.

Read on to learn how we engaged EU policy makers on the issue by talking about fish sex… yes, you read that right.

300+ MEPs

watched the campaign video in the EU Parliament

20% INCREASED TO 30% PROTECTION

in legal objective by ENVI Rappateur

EU NATURE RESTORATION LAW PASSED

just 3 months after the campaign launched

The challenge

In 2022-23, European institutions are deciding on the EU Nature Restoration Law. This critical policy calls for the restoration of 178,000km of rivers through the removal obsolete barriers and the restoration of flood planes. To seize the opportunity, WWF needed to grab attention and get policymakers to engage with the plight of freshwater migratory fish… who don’t exactly have the cute factor. Conservation messaging is often dry and our challenge was to create content that made a splash.

The solution

We crafted a narrative that cut through in a way that WWF audiences and policy makers weren’t expecting… by talking about fish sex.

The problem is that dams get in the way of migratory fish mating. So we introduced Otis: a salmon trying to swim to his girlfriend to get it on, make some babies, and save his species. The story was told across a hero video, static assets and interactive landing page. These were shared with WWF’s European offices and partners, with 27 countries taking part and posting the campaign, reaching an audience of millions.

Otis delivered a simple call to action: Let’s Talk About Fish Sex.

Our tools to create great solutions:

Swimming all over Europe...

Our strategy to engage policy makers directly was simple: get WWF's followers to ask MEPs to talk about fish sex, using our tweet-your-MEP tool. We made this call-to-action inviting with an interactive microsite, where the user swims down the landing page with Otis, on his quest for love. At each barrier, the user learns why their MEP must act, and arrives at an easy tool to contact them. The campaign was shared with WWF offices in 27 countries across Europe and translated into multiple languages. The German version of the video alone received over 100,000 views on Instagram.

Migratory sex education

Migratory sex education

We got followers to the microsite with humorous educational carousels. The provocative tone worked well by surprising WWF's audience.

Drag right to see more

We got followers to the microsite with humorous educational carousels. The provocative tone worked well by surprising WWF's audience.

Our video was shown at the European Parliament in September, which inspired a number of organisations around Europe to engage and tweet about the campaign.

Having 'the talk'

Our CTA was to talk about fish sex, and the campaign did get people talking. #LetsTalkAboutFishSex was used hundreds of times across channels. It even reached Greenpeace, who summed it up with 'wow.'

Having 'the talk'

Our CTA was to talk about fish sex, and the campaign did get people talking. #LetsTalkAboutFishSex was used hundreds of times across channels. It even reached Greenpeace, who summed it up with 'wow.'