Results and Effectiveness

The number of dogs in shelter homes is now at it’s lowest EVER level. PAD awareness reached 32% and we clearly overcame the perception that shelter dogs were damaged goods – with an incredible 3,365 dogs being adopted after just two months. Some shelters even ran out of dogs and had to put people on waiting lists! Pedigree received hundreds of emails, demonstrating the campaign’s effect on brand preference. One dog lover wrote, “I learnt about your campaign watching Funniest Home Videos. I will support this cause and, more importantly, switch my dog to Pedigree from now on.”

Creative Execution

Ideally we’d take every shelter dog to the city; letting people meet them and showing the scale of the problem. In reality we did the next best thing. We created 1000’s of life sized cut-out dogs and released them in parks and main streets. Each dog was ‘Pedigree yellow’, told the dog’s story and how to adopt. People loved the Yellow Dogs and Twitter was filled with stories of people carrying them home on trains! On live TV, presenters of family targeted TV shows introduced our dogs and hugged them; showing they were not ‘damaged goods’. Live audiences were openly shocked to hear the dogs could be destroyed. Each week in Australia’s largest newspapers, 12 new dogs appeared within dedicated PAD editorial pages; for the cost of a small ad on each page. Stories were told within Yahoo7 lifestyle and Facebook; keeping fans informed with news from PAD.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

In Australia a dog is euthanised every 50 minutes because it doesn’t have a home. The Pedigree Adoption Drive (PAD) aims to help these ‘shelter dogs’, but after two years PAD had only saved a few hundred lives. Our target was to double awareness of PAD, from 15% to 30%, and persuade dog lovers to adopt an amazing 3,000 dogs. Most dog lovers would never consider going to a shelter to adopt; they thought shelter dogs were ‘damaged goods’. But shelter workers told us that once people met the dogs, and heard their stories, they were more inclined to adopt. Our insight was that personal lifestories have the power to overcome negative perceptions. We would use media to take our shelter dogs and their lifestories to the people of Australia, featuring real dogs needing homes that week, followed by success stories of their adoption into new loving families.