Animal Planet Helping National Zoological Gardens of South Africa Raise Money With Animal Ringtones

By Angeliné Cronje

Pretoria, South Africa - The National Zoological Gardens of South Africa and the Animal Planet channel on Dstv have announced a new fundraising programme. The campaign, designed to raise funds for the zoo’s proposed new penguin enclosure, will allow members of the public to purchase animal sounds as ringtones and nature scene wallpapers for their cellphones. Dstv’s Animal Planet has supplied all the material at no cost; corporate partners include low cost airline Mango, Tempest Car Hire, Vodacom’s The Grid, custom software designers Netgen, The Times and African Media Management.
“Animal sound ringtones have rocketed in popularity in Europe,” says Craig Allenby, the Zoo’s Manager of Commercial Services and Business Development. "We hope to raise funds for the zoo through this constructive, value driven fundraising effort. This is our first foray into commercial fundraising. We are delighted to be partnering with such a highly recognised world class brand as Animal Planet".

Paul Welling, VP Head of Channels, Discovery Networks says “South Africa is one of our key markets and we believe it’s important to support local initiatives wherever possible. Animal Planet has a strong heritage of programming which takes audiences through a full range of emotions. The National Zoological Gardens acts in the same way and is a natural fit for us to partner together".

The campaign, which kicked off on 1 June 2009, is timed to coincide with the celebration of Africa month during which time Animal Planet will also broadcast a collection of programming celebrating the rich heritage of our continent. Mobile social network The Grid will support the campaign through communicating with its user base while Mango, Tempest Car Hire and The Times will leverage its communication channels to promote downloads of ringtones.

Custom software engineers Netgen have developed the mobile site at no cost while African Media Management will use its existing mobile channels to promote the effort.
 
To participate, simply SMS Animal to 31890 to subscribe at R 10.00 a week for access to the ringtones and wallpapers.