Why Pangolin?

A question we get asked a lot is, “Why are you called Pangolin?”

Well, softer, first date answers aside, it’s about storytelling. It gets people asking questions, talking, engaging – something that we aim for with all our client work. It inevitably then leads to the key question: “What is a pangolin?”

Pangolin /paŋˈɡə(ʊ)lɪn/

noun

an African and Asian mammal that has a body covered with horny overlapping scales, a small head with an elongated snout, a long sticky tongue for catching ants and termites, and a tapering tail.

Now, while correct, that definition lacks one salient detail, pangolins are in trouble. Pangolins, whilst not well known, just so happened to be the globe’s most trafficked mammal. 6 of the 8 pangolin species have been classified as ‘Endangered or Critically Endangered’ which means time is running out to save these unique creatures. The distinct protective scales of the pangolin are used in some overseas medicinal products, resulting in the illegal trafficking and slaughter of the mammal on a catastrophic scale. 

So, how do we, a London based PR agency, do anything to stop this tragedy? Well, it all goes back to the beginning of this article. We need to get people asking questions, talking and engaging with pangolins. We need to make them famous. 

But how? How do we get people talking about pangolins? We put them on your keyboards. We put them on your phones. We put them on your timelines. We petition for a pangolin emoji.

For World Pangolin Day 2022, we teamed up with Born Free and David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation to petition all the major players in social media to add the most trafficked mammal to their platforms as an emoji. We used the charities’ online presence to encourage the public to re-share and champion our campaign, challenging the likes of Emoji, Meta, Twitter and SnapChat to act. The hashtag #PangolinEmoji was used to conjure up as much buzz and conservation as possible to ensure the world tech leaders take notice. The pangolin emoji mock-up was also pretty cool TBF.

Since the project went live, press started to take notice, but more importantly, the likes of Twitter and Emoji themselves have been in touch to discuss the potential addition. Watch this space (but in the meanwhile – here’s some more on the pangolin’s plight).