SPDA's 'If You Buy You Are Complicit' campaign by Apoyo Comunicación confronted Peruvian consumers with their direct role in illegal wildlife trafficking
ARCHIVESPDA and Apoyo Comunicación Turn Wildlife Buyers Into Accomplices
"If You Buy You Are Complicit" is a September 2017 public interest campaign created by Apoyo Comunicación for SPDA — Peru's Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental — that reframes illegal wildlife trafficking as a demand-side crime by holding everyday consumers directly accountable for their purchasing decisions involving wild animals and souvenirs derived from protected species.
SPDA is a Peruvian environmental-law nonprofit, not a conventional consumer brand. That institutional identity shapes the campaign's entire strategic logic: rather than appealing for donations or legislative change, "If You Buy You Are Complicit" targets the transaction itself. The campaign's central proposition is that the consumer who purchases an exotic pet, a feather ornament, or a souvenir crafted from a trafficked animal is not a passive bystander but an active participant in a criminal supply chain that threatens over 300 wild animal species in Peru, as documented by Actualidadambiental Pe and servindi.org.
The campaign launched in Peru in September 2017 as an integrated public interest effort, encompassing at least one primary media asset and a Facebook presence that generated substantial reach across the Peruvian digital landscape, according to Mercadonegro Pe. Institutional partners included SERFOR, WCS, APECO, SERNANP, and Peru's Ministry of Production, a coalition that gave the campaign legal and scientific credibility alongside its creative ambition, as reported by conservamospornaturaleza.org and Spda Org Pe. The breadth of that coalition signals the campaign's ambition to operate not merely as awareness advertising but as a coordinated public-interest intervention in Peru's ongoing struggle against wildlife trafficking.
"If You Buy You Are Complicit" targets demand rather than supply. The strategic insight driving the campaign is that enforcement-focused messaging — directed at poachers, smugglers, and traders — leaves the consumer economy that funds wildlife trafficking entirely undisturbed. By addressing Peruvian buyers directly, Apoyo Comunicación and SPDA attempt to sever the economic rationale at its root.
Peru is one of the world's most biodiverse countries, and that biodiversity makes it a persistent source market for illegal wildlife trade. According to actualidadambiental.pe and servindi.org, more than 300 wild animal species in Peru are trafficked annually, destined for the souvenir market or the exotic pet trade. The campaign positions every purchase in that chain — however uninformed — as an act of complicity, shifting moral and legal awareness downstream from trafficker to consumer.
The institutional partnership structure reinforces this strategy. Aligning with SERFOR, Peru's national forestry and wildlife authority, and with SERNANP, which administers the country's protected natural areas, gave the campaign governmental legitimacy that purely NGO-driven messaging rarely achieves, as noted by conservamospornaturaleza.org. The involvement of WCS — the Wildlife Conservation Society — and APECO added international scientific authority. Comparable public interest campaigns operating in Latin America during the same period, such as the earlier "Nature Has an Army" print campaign created for SPDA by Mayo Draft FCB in February 2012 and documented by mercadonegro.pe, leaned on institutional gravitas rather than consumer confrontation. "If You Buy You Are Complicit" sharpens that lineage by making the accusation personal and immediate, targeting the Peruvian general public rather than policy audiences alone.
Bruno Yaker served as creative director on "If You Buy You Are Complicit." The campaign's creative logic is confrontational by design, locating guilt not in the jungle or the black market but in the moment of purchase — a frame that requires the audience to recognise themselves in the accusation.
Luis Santillán served as art director, shaping the visual identity of a campaign whose integrated format suggests a layered execution across digital and physical touchpoints. The campaign's primary distributed asset functions within what the brief classifies as a social experiment or documentary register — a mode of public interest communication that uses observed or staged real-world interactions to generate evidence of the problem it seeks to address. This approach carries particular rhetorical force in the context of wildlife trafficking because it allows the creative work to show, rather than simply assert, the casual ease with which Peruvian consumers might unknowingly or knowingly participate in an illegal trade.
The production was overseen at an account level by general manager Milagros Avedaño and account director Bernardo Oliart, whose roles ensured the campaign's institutional partner requirements — spanning five separate governmental and conservation organisations — were integrated into the creative output without diluting its central message. The campaign's Clapboard Score of 59 out of 100 reflects a body of work that demonstrates clear strategic coherence and purposeful creative framing, while leaving room for broader distribution ambition and measurable consumer-behaviour outcomes. The social experiment format, when executed with authenticity, has demonstrated sustained shelf life in public interest advertising across Latin America and beyond, and the Apoyo Comunicación team's choice of that mode speaks to an awareness of how Peruvian audiences engage with documentary-style content on social platforms.
ARCHIVENo verified performance data for "If You Buy You Are Complicit" beyond platform-level reach is publicly available in independently audited form. The campaign generated more than two million impressions on its Facebook page, according to mercadonegro.pe — a figure that indicates meaningful reach within the Peruvian digital public interest space for a non-commercial campaign operating without a conventional media budget.
"If You Buy You Are Complicit" won the 2018 Premio ANDA in the Comunicación No Tradicional category, as documented by clapboard.com and spda.org.pe. The Premio ANDA is one of Peru's most recognised advertising and communications industry honours, and recognition in the non-traditional communication category affirms the campaign's departure from conventional public service announcement formats. No verified wins in Cannes Lions, Effie Awards, the One Show, D&AD, the Clio Awards, the Webby Awards, or WARC competitions are publicly documented, per clapboard.com.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness rests on a durable insight: that demand-side accountability messaging in public interest advertising tends to achieve higher recall and attitude shift than supply-side enforcement appeals, because it implicates the audience rather than a distant third party. The multi-institutional partnership — spanning SERFOR, WCS, APECO, SERNANP, and Peru's Ministry of Production — provides the campaign with a legitimacy architecture that extends its persuasive reach beyond what a single NGO could achieve in the Peruvian market. The Clapboard Score of 59 out of 100 reflects a campaign that lands its strategic argument clearly and earns its award recognition, while the absence of broader certified performance metrics limits a fuller assessment of behavioural impact.
"If You Buy You Are Complicit" is a 2017 public interest campaign by Apoyo Comunicación for SPDA that holds Peruvian consumers directly accountable for illegal wildlife trafficking. It targets buyers of exotic pets and wildlife-derived souvenirs, arguing that purchasing these products makes consumers active participants in a criminal trade affecting more than 300 species.
Apoyo Comunicación created the campaign for SPDA in September 2017 in Peru. Creative director Bruno Yaker and art director Luis Santillán led the creative execution. General manager Milagros Avedaño and account director Bernardo Oliart oversaw production, with institutional partners including SERFOR, WCS, APECO, SERNANP, and Peru's Ministry of Production.
The campaign won the 2018 Premio ANDA in the Comunicación No Tradicional category, according to clapboard.com and spda.org.pe. No verified wins in Cannes Lions, Effie Awards, the One Show, D&AD, the Clio Awards, the Webby Awards, or WARC competitions are publicly documented for this campaign.
More than 300 wild animal species in Peru are trafficked annually, according to actualidadambiental.pe and servindi.org. The SPDA campaign used this figure to frame consumer purchasing decisions — including exotic pets and wildlife-derived souvenirs — as direct contributions to a supply chain threatening Peru's exceptional biodiversity.
The campaign used a social experiment and documentary format, a mode that presents observed or staged real-world interactions as evidence of the problem being addressed. This integrated public interest approach was distributed digitally in Peru and generated more than two million impressions on the campaign's Facebook page, according to mercadonegro.pe.
SPDA, the Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental, is a Peruvian environmental-law nonprofit focused on protecting Peru's natural environment through legal and communications advocacy. It commissioned "If You Buy You Are Complicit" to address consumer-driven demand for trafficked wildlife, a strategy consistent with SPDA's earlier public interest work documented by mercadonegro.pe and spda.org.pe.
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