In part because peti­tions are a less con­ven­tion­al mar­ket­ing tool, they help brands cut through noise and cap­ture con­sumer atten­tion. Regard­less of whether they come from brand or con­sumer, peti­tions offer not only a unique way to unite com­mu­ni­ty and engage with fans, but also an oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­act with incred­i­bly pas­sion­ate con­sumers. And the peti­tions don’t even have to be seri­ous. Peti­tion-wor­thy issues run the gamut from emo­jis and Death Stars to back­ground checks and body sham­ing.

The Zim­bab­we Parks and Wildlife Man­age­ment Author­i­ty has sus­pend­ed lion hunt­ing out­side of its Hwange Nation­al Park. Per some reports, the move comes in response to a peti­tion to hon­or the now infa­mous Cecil the Lion, which gen­er­at­ed more than 1 mil­lion sig­na­tures in a week.

Fur­ther, a White House peti­tion to extra­dite the den­tist who alleged­ly killed Cecil has more than 230,000 sig­na­tures, which means the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion will even­tu­al­ly respond because the White House replies to all peti­tions that receive 100,000 sig­na­tures with­in 30 days.

The exam­ples of both lion and den­tist are great illus­tra­tions of the pow­er online peti­tions have to not only unite con­sumers, but to inspire action. And increas­ing­ly, brands are tak­ing note.

Here’s a look at 10 brands using peti­tions as mar­ket­ing vehi­cles.

Brand-Driven Petitions

Tillmook And American Cheese

Call­ing Amer­i­can cheese “un-Amer­i­can,” dairy brand Tillam­ook asked con­sumers to sign a White House peti­tion to strip America’s name from “these processed, plas­tic-wrapped slices of decep­tion.”

The cam­paign net­ted about 4,700 sig­na­tures, which is rough­ly 95,000 shy of spurring a gov­ern­ment response. How­ev­er, an accom­pa­ny­ing video near­ly hit the 100,000-view mark.

The White House And The Death Star

A 2012 peti­tion to the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion to make 2016 the year it builds a Death Star – the super­weapon in “Star Wars” that was capa­ble of destroy­ing entire plan­ets with a sin­gle laser beam – gen­er­at­ed about 35,000 sig­na­tures, as well as offi­cial recog­ni­tion.

In fact, at Dig­i­tal Sum­mit Phoenix ear­li­er this year, Leigh Hey­man, a senior pol­i­cy advi­sor at the White House who is also the for­mer direc­tor of new media tech­nolo­gies, not­ed the White House response to the “tongue-in-cheek peti­tion” point­ed out Death Star con­struc­tion has been esti­mat­ed to cost $850,000,000,000,000,000 and the Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion does­n’t sup­port blow­ing up plan­ets.

“This Pres­i­dent said he want­ed this to be the most par­tic­i­pa­to­ry gov­ern­ment in his­to­ry. He want­ed to change the sta­tus quo,” Hey­man said. That’s why the White House used the Death Star peti­tion as an engage­ment oppor­tu­ni­ty and embed­ded var­i­ous links with­in its response with details about the U.S. space pro­gram.

“Nor­mal­ly when we respond to a peti­tion, we send a sur­vey about the experience…nearly half that received the response [about the Death Star] said they learned some­thing new,” Hey­man added.

That com­mu­ni­ca­tion is key.

“We get a lot of peti­tions from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum. There’s a con­ver­sa­tion hap­pen­ing between us and the peo­ple who cre­at­ed the peti­tion that is not fil­tered by talk radio and cable news,” Hey­man said. “It’s not a real con­ver­sa­tion we could have any­where else.”

Taco Bell And The Taco Emoji

In Decem­ber, Taco Bell post­ed a Change.org peti­tion, ask­ing Amer­i­cans to help con­vince the Uni­code Con­sor­tium, the non­prof­it that reg­u­lates cod­ing stan­dards for emo­jis, to make the taco emo­ji offi­cial. Rough­ly 33,000 sig­na­tures lat­er in June, the taco emo­ji became a real­i­ty.

Cre­at­ing the peti­tion was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to unite a com­mu­ni­ty around some­thing for which the brand and con­sumers share a mutu­al pas­sion, accord­ing to Matt Prince, PR and news­room man­ag­er at Taco Bell.

“Our fans love tacos, and they love emo­jis — the 30,000 sig­na­tures and sup­port on social media is proof of what’s pos­si­ble when you bring those things togeth­er,” Prince said.

Fur­ther, he said a peti­tion sig­na­ture was more pow­er­ful in the fight for the taco emo­ji than a like, a favorite, or a view.

“Being able to lead the charge as a taco fan first, and Taco Bell sec­ond, pro­vid­ed us an oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage with our fans in a much more unique and mean­ing­ful way,” Prince added.

Noland Cham­b­liss, direc­tor of exter­nal affairs at peti­tion tool Change.org, agreed the key here is that the brand was not pro­mot­ing a Taco Bell emo­ji, but rather “some­thing the entire taco com­mu­ni­ty can ral­ly behind. They were tak­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty to be a leader, but not self-promotional…and obvi­ous­ly it res­onat­ed.”

Juicy Fruit And The Gum Emoji

The Taco Bell peti­tion inspired the Juicy Fruit gum brand to post its own peti­tion ask­ing con­sumers to vote for a bub­ble-gum-blow­ing emo­ji, Cham­b­liss said.

As of August 2015, the peti­tion has about 700 sig­na­tures.

T‑Mobile And Overage Charges

On what Cham­b­liss calls the “slight­ly more aggres­sive side,” T‑Mobile CEO John Leg­ere post­ed a peti­tion call­ing on wire­less car­ri­ers AT&T, Ver­i­zon, and Sprint to drop over­age charges.

Not­ing these charges cost con­sumers more than $1 bil­lion each year, the T‑Mobile peti­tion says it’s time to “send a mes­sage to the old guard wire­less com­pa­nies that bill shock and over­age fees are no longer accept­able.”

To date, the peti­tion has near­ly 250,000 sig­na­tures.

“This was a chance to posi­tion them­selves as out and in front on issue,” Cham­b­liss said.

Virgin America And Love Field

When Dal­las’ Love Field had two gate vacan­cies in 2014, Vir­gin Amer­i­ca took to Change.org to ask con­sumers to help it bring some “healthy com­pe­ti­tion” to the air­port dom­i­nat­ed by a sin­gle air­line that, at the time, it said con­trolled 90 per­cent of the traf­fic and 80 per­cent of the gates.

The PR push also includ­ed the web­site FreeLoveField.com, the hash­tag #LoveToFly­Vir­gin and a video with founder Richard Bran­son writ­ing a love let­ter to Love Field, which includes the line, “You have the win­dow seat to my heart, Kit­ten.”

The peti­tion net­ted near­ly 28,000 sig­na­tures, as well as approval from the City of Dal­las to lease two gates just 11 days after the peti­tion was cre­at­ed.

“It was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate the pub­lic excite­ment about Vir­gin Amer­i­ca and ulti­mate­ly they won,” Cham­b­liss said.

Seventh Generation And Toxic Materials

Clean­ing, paper, and per­son­al care brand Sev­enth Gen­er­a­tion is peti­tion­ing the New York State Sen­ate to pass the Child Safe Prod­ucts Act to “get…toxins out of our kids’ hands.”

As of August 2015, it has about 19,000 sup­port­ers.

Consumer-Driven Petitions

Per Cham­b­liss, anoth­er inter­est­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty is the abil­i­ty to respond to peti­tions direct­ed to brands.

“We have hun­dreds of new peti­tions every day,” Cham­b­liss said. “It is inevitable [brands] will be on the receiv­ing end of a peti­tion and, for some folks, that’s a scary prospect.”

As a result, Cham­b­liss said Change.org has been work­ing on how to enable pro­duc­tive con­ver­sa­tions between peti­tion­ers and those that receive peti­tions, which he said Change.org calls “deci­sion mak­ers” because the plat­form wants to “remove the antag­o­nis­tic frame­work.”

“It can be a pro­duc­tive con­ver­sa­tion with stake­hold­ers that work togeth­er for change,” Cham­b­liss said. “[Peti­tion­ers] cre­at­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to respond to them and make a dia­log and a lot of brands take advan­tage.”

And that’s impor­tant because a peti­tion is a moment when a com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple has already had an expe­ri­ence with a giv­en brand and they’ve tak­en action.

“That’s a per­son you want to be in con­ver­sa­tion with,” Cham­b­liss said. “Maybe you don’t love the way they’ve come to think about the brand today, but it’s an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­nect with some­one who has thought deeply about your brand and is already engag­ing.”

Exam­ples abound.

Uber And Background Checks

A woman in India peti­tioned Uber to man­date sev­en-year back­ground checks after the rape of a woman by a dri­ver.

The peti­tion had over 63,000 sig­na­tures, as well as a response from Uber not­ing new poli­cies would be imple­ment­ed. “It was par­tic­u­lar­ly pop­u­lar and Uber took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to respond and went over a series of steps to do a bit bet­ter,” Cham­b­liss said.

“It was an amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to take a dif­fi­cult moment and turn it into a brand oppor­tu­ni­ty.”

Piperlime And Fur

A peti­tion for Gap brand Piper­lime to stop sell­ing fur result­ed in more than 52,000 sig­na­tures and a change in cor­po­rate pol­i­cy.

Cham­b­liss calls this “an amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn some­one who is a Gap fan into an even big­ger advo­cate for the brand.”

GoDaddy And That Super Bowl Commercial With The Puppy

A peti­tion express­ing out­rage over GoDaddy’s 2015 Super Bowl ad had 42,000 sup­port­ers. In the end, GoDad­dy pulled the ad and respond­ed to peti­tion­ers.

But Does It Really Matter?

Change.org has 100 mil­lion users and the plat­form is start­ing to see more brands iden­ti­fy oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow com­mu­ni­ty around the issues they care about, accord­ing to Cham­b­liss.

“A peti­tion is the old­est orga­ni­za­tion­al tool that exists,” Cham­b­liss said. “It’s the sim­plest polit­i­cal action any­one can take: ‘I believe in this,’ and some­one says, ‘I agree.’ It’s sim­ple, but pro­found.”

While peti­tions of yore required phys­i­cal­ly find­ing peo­ple to sign, the process has been made “much, much eas­i­er by the Inter­net,” he said.

“It’s inter­est­ing and fas­ci­nat­ing watch­ing folks try­ing to get orga­nized online redis­cov­er this tool and how pow­er­ful it can be,” Cham­b­liss added.

What’s more, peti­tions give brands a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to respond to a con­cerned com­mu­ni­ty rather than giv­ing a state­ment to the press or rely­ing on social plat­forms to dis­trib­ute a mes­sage indis­crim­i­nate­ly, he said.

“If I don’t look at Twit­ter every day, I might miss a response,” Cham­b­liss said. How­ev­er, with a peti­tion, a brand can make sure an engaged com­mu­ni­ty hears about the issue they care about, which, he said, is “a lit­tle more sur­gi­cal.”

5 Tips To Maximize The Potential Of Petitions

For any brand inter­est­ed in tap­ping the poten­tial of peti­tions, here are five expert tips.

1. Use a major plat­form: Dana DiT­o­ma­so, part­ner at dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing agency Kick Point, sus­pects the rea­son Till­mook may have strug­gled to gen­er­ate inter­est is that the Amer­i­can cheese peti­tion is housed on its web­site. There­fore, she rec­om­mends brands opt to use a major plat­form instead.
2. Have a clear mis­sion: The Taco Bell peti­tion was suc­cess­ful because it had “a spe­cif­ic, achiev­able goal,” accord­ing to Cham­b­liss.
3. Make it com­pelling: Like taco emo­jis, a peti­tion does­n’t have to be grave or seri­ous to be com­pelling, Cham­b­liss said.
4. Cre­ate urgency: Taco Bell released its peti­tion when a new round of emo­jis was about to be approved and released. “Folks knew that they need­ed to gath­er enough sig­na­tures to con­vince Uni­code before they made their final deci­sion,” Cham­b­liss said.
5. Imple­ment a strat­e­gy: Taco Bell pro­mot­ed its peti­tion via social media, a microsite and taco emo­ji t‑shirts. “They did­n’t just post the peti­tion and hope folks would find it, they had a plan to get it in front of peo­ple and get them excit­ed,” Cham­b­liss said.

How much mar­ket­ing poten­tial do you see in online peti­tions?