Campaign: Pedigree Adoption Drive

Client: Pedigree

Agencies: WhybinTBWATequila, Starcom MediaVest, DEC Communications, Ambient and Digital Democracy

Background

Pedigree believes every dog deserves a loving home, but sadly over 100,000 unwanted dogs are euthanised in Australia every year. To improve this plight, each year Pedigree partners with not-for-profit organisation, PetRescue, to enlist the help of Australians nationwide.

Over the course of two years, the Pedigree Adoption Drive raised over $675,000 towards improving the life of homeless dogs. In 2009 alone, over 3000 dogs were rescued.

Running from 4 June to 30 July 2010, this year’s campaign was designed to raise awareness for the plight of dogs. Australians were encouraged to lend their support for the worthy cause by visiting www.pedigreeadoptiondrive.com.au and either adopting a homeless dog, donating online or buying Pedigree, with a portion of the proceeds from each specially marked pack going to PetRescue.

For the 2010 campaign, Pedigree and PetRescue assembled a team of leading agencies including WhybinTBWATequila, Starcom, DEC Communications and Digital Democracy in order to mobilise the multitude of marketing mediums available to them.

Objectives

After two successful years, the brief for the 2010 initiative was to educate Australians on the emotive cause and leverage the heart-warming stories of real dogs saved by the campaign from the past two years.

With a target of finding new homes for at least another 4000 dogs and increasing the donation figure by at least $100,000, the campaign team’s goal was to make 2010 the most successful drive yet.

Two additional objectives for the campaign were: to highlight Pedigree’s genuine commitment to finding every dog a loving home; and to give dog lovers the opportunity to be involved in improving the sad current situation of our four-legged friends in need.

Strategy

Following the very successful campaign in 2009, the 2010 Pedigree Adoption Drive reinforced Pedigree’s commitment to making the world a better place for Australian dogs.

A $4 million campaign was rolled out across all consumer touch points including TV, print, online, digital, PR and point of sale. The objective was to drive as much traffic as possible to the campaign website, pedigreeadoptiondrive.com.au, where consumers could offer their support in a number of ways.

When visiting this website, consumers were invited to tell their story, spread the word, buy merchandise, donate, volunteer, foster and/or, most importantly, adopt a dog.

The target audience for the creative campaign was dog lovers nationwide. There is a sense of guardianship that comes with owning and loving a dog. Dog owners know how much their pet brings to their lives and that all they want in return is love and protection. They also know there are people out there that don’t provide the same level of care to dogs and they feel passionately that they’d like to do something about it. But sometimes the problem can appear too big and people feel that they alone can’t do anything to improve the situation. The 2010 Pedigree Adoption Drive campaign offered these dog lovers a solution and demonstrated that, by supporting the Pedigree Adoption Drive, Australians can work together to improve the lives of thousands of dogs.

Execution

The execution of the campaign utilised a number of marketing channels and was staggered over six weeks to generate maximum awareness and encourage involvement throughout the short period.

Creative agency WhybinTBWA created a heartfelt TV and print execution, taken to market by Starcom MediaVest with an extensive media schedule, including a Channel Seven partnership and AFL sponsorship with sporting ambassador Brad Johnson.

WhybinTBWA’s digital arm, Tequila, was responsible for the build, design, creative and digital strategy for the brand new Pedigree Adoption Drive website – which acted as the central focus of the campaign.

PR agency DEC worked together with leading celebrity ambassadors Tom Williams, Myf Warhurst and PetRescue to release the inaugural Dog Adoption Index, a report into the issue of dog homelessness in Australia. This was intended to drive awareness and bust the myths that surround rescue-dog adoption.

The official launch to the drive was marked by ‘Yellow Dog Day’ on 4 June, a direct-to-consumer activation brought to life by Ambient. Yellow dogs appeared across Australian capital cities, representing the thousands that could potentially be saved each year.

In the digital arena WhybinTBWA worked in conjunction with Digital Democracy to see pedigreeadoptiondrive.com.au come to life with new content and merchandise, and a Facebook fan page www.facebook.com/thepedigreeadoptiondriveaustralia.

At retail, the campaign was signalled via on-pack promotions, point of sale, floor media and donation relationships with leading supermarket partners.

Results

Thousands of Australians threw their support behind the annual initiative, demonstrating how willing the country’s dog lovers really are to lend a hand to paws in need.

The initiative came to an end with a record number of dogs saved, thanks to the 2010 Pedigree Adoption Drive and the efforts of everyday Australians.

Pedigree is pleased to announce that a record 4238 dogs were saved and given new homes during this year’s drive. Since the campaign’s inception only three years ago, the total number of dogs saved now exceeds 8000.

While the primary objective of the program is to raise awareness and encourage the Australian community to save homeless dogs through adoption, the campaign also raised $150,108 in donations to PetRescue, which will assist in its ongoing endeavours to save more dogs.

The Pedigree Adoption Drive website received an incredible 154,000 unique visitors throughout the campaign, and the PetRescue site saw a 41 percent increase on site visits to PetRescue – thanks to awareness generated by the various promotional activities.

The 2010 campaign has already received recognition from the industry, picking up several awards. Media agency, Starcom MediaVest, recently dominated the Media Federation Awards, with four wins including the major Grand Prix Award.

Digital agency Tequila has also won awards for its part in the campaign. Tequila’s ‘Pedigree Adoption Drive Application’ was declared the winner of the first round of the fifth annual Creative Showcase, Australia’s leading free online award for creativity in digital advertising.

The campaign from Tequila centred on driving dog lovers to Facebook. Within just three months the fan page secured over 40,000 supporters, which was more than twice the target set by Pedigree and, for the first 50,000 fans, a bowl of dog food will be donated to a rescue group thanks to Pedigree.

Speaking of the campaign, Andrew Scott, managing director of WhybinTBWATequila, says, “In 2009, the ‘Pedigree Adoption Drive’ was an overwhelming success. Our brief this year was to continue to educate Australians on this important cause and significantly improve on the results from the last two years, and we have successfully achieved these goals. We look forward to working with Pedigree, PetRescue and all of the other creative agencies on building another successful campaign in 2011.”