| Title | PEDIGREE UNDERDOG DAY |
| Brand | MARS PETCARE |
| Product / Service | PEDIGREE DOG ADOPTION |
| Category | A04. Ambient/Alternative Media |
| Entrant | WHYBIN\TBWA GROUP Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
| Entrant Company: | WHYBIN\TBWA GROUP Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
| DM/Advertising Agency: | WHYBIN\TBWA GROUP Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
| Name | Company | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Matty Burton | Whybin\tbwa Sydney | Executive Creative Director |
| Dave Bowman | Whybin\tbwa Sydney | Executive Creative Director |
| Russ Tucker | Whybin\tbwa Sydney | Digital Creative Director |
| Hannes Ciatti | Whybin\tbwa Sydney | Art Director |
| Dean Hamilton | Whybin\tbwa Sydney | Copywriter |
| Tiffany Brittain | Whybin\tbwa Sydney | Account Director |
| Elodie Kingasiou | Whybin\tbwa Sydney | Campaign Manager |
The Pedigree Adoption Drive aims to rehome as many shelter dogs as possible. Sadly, over 100,000 dogs are needlessly euthanised every year because most people think they’re damaged and find it difficult visiting shelter homes to adopt. So if we couldn’t bring people to the shelter dogs, we’d bring the shelter dogs to the people. Our objective was to dispel any myths about shelter dogs being damaged, as well as make searching for a dog simple, accessible and as fun as it possibly could be. And with targeted media, we wanted to reach the widest and most receptive audience possible.
Adopting a shelter dog used to be difficult and time consuming with different shelters responding and behaving in different ways. There was also a negative stigma attached to shelter dogs, with most people believing they are mentally and/or physically damaged. But when people saw and read first hand that these dogs are just like every other dog out there, their perceptions immediately changed. Plus, by consolidating all the information and directing everyone to one central online location (the first time ever), we gave every dog a greater chance of adoption – the ultimate aim of the program.
We knew Australia’s most popular beach was Bondi, attracting up to 40,000 people on any given Saturday. To give these dogs a better chance of adoption, in one day we transformed Bondi Beach into Underdog Day. 1.5km of yellow branded dog leads were tied along Bondi’s entire foreshore (one of Australia’s most popular dog walking tracks). At the end of each lead was the image and profile of a shelter dog waiting to be adopted. And with a unique code attached to each profile, people were encouraged to enter the code online to find out more and hopefully adopt them.
Successfully, over 60% of the dogs on the day were adopted and this four-hour event reached over 22 million people via earned national media. Considering that Australia has a population of only a little over 22 million people, that’s quite significant. Better still, the education and PR gained from this event helped to rehome thousands of more dogs throughout the campaign.