Leopards; Cats Eat Rats

Kizito and I befriended a telecommunications company in Kinshasa, Zaire, called Telecel. In the early 90's Telecel was a monopoly, and had no real need to advertise its expensive ($10.00 per minute) service by clunky portable telephones.

We cajoled Telecel into hiring us for an advertising campaign that included cartoons, billboards, and educational help for schools. We used what is called "social marketing", where a community service is provided and marketed. In one of our actions, we designed locally printed school notebooks which were small booklets with a few dozen blank pages that students copied their daily lessons into, from the blackboard.

The notebook above was writtten and illustrated by the two of us working together. The cover stated, "Telecel Likes African Animals." The inside front and back covers discussed the natural history of the leopard and on the back outside, there was a lesson on the natural ability of the domestic cat, in hunting rats. (Cats were feared and rarely kept; yet rodents were terrible pests and few could afford rat poison.)

In our strategy, 10,000 notebooks were sold on the market by a local printer. The extra cost for the color printing had been subsidized by Telecel, so the price was competitive with the school notebooks that were imported from China, and the printer got a profit. (All of the imported notebooks had a crude map of Zaire on the cover and a multiplication table on the back).

As our notebooks were unique, what happened was that the color plates were stolen by another printer and uncounted copies were produced, which got our conservation story out even further. We, and Telecel, were delighted.