| Title | PEDIGREE ADOPTION DRIVE |
| Brand | MARS PETCARE |
| Product / Service | PEDIGREE DOG ADOPTION |
| Category | B05. Public Service, Charity & Fund Raising |
| 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 |
| Dean Hamilton | Whybin\tbwa Sydney | Copywriter |
| Hannes Ciatti | Whybin\tbwa Sydney | Art Director |
| Andrea Byrne | Whybin\tbwa Sydney | Account Director |
| Chris Rollings | Whybin\tbwa Sydney | Digital Producer |
The Pedigree Adoption Drive aims to rehome as many shelter dogs as possible. Sadly, over 100,000 dogs are still needlessly euthanised every year in Australia because most people think they are damaged and therefore 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 reach as many people across the country as possible.
Adopting a shelter dog used to be difficult and time consuming with different shelters responding and behaving in different ways. Some were online. Some were not. By consolidating all the information and directing everyone to one central online location, we gave every dog a greater chance of adoption – the ultimate aim of the program. And by targeting the widest audience possible in a variety of ways, we also dispelled the myth that all shelter dogs are damaged, proving once and for all that they are just like every other dog out there - loving, loyal and longing to please.
Before we began, we centralised every dog into one database bringing the 716 shelters across the country together for the first time. Then we created Underdog Day at Bondi Beach – Pedigree’s largest outdoor awareness drive to date. The enormous PR gained from this promotion drove people to the rest of our online activity where, waiting for them was Dog-A-Like – a phone and Facebook app we’d launched one month earlier which finds your perfect match and let’s you adopt them. Lastly, we filmed an 8 part online documentary following the lives of five Underdogs from homelessness to their forever loving homes.
This became Australia’s most successful rehoming campaign to date with 26 million media impressions and over 200,000 bowls of dog food donated via Facebook ‘Likes’. Dog-A-Like became No. 1 App in the Australian iTunes store and we received 5.8 million Facebook users during the campaign. Due to an unprecedented following, the ‘Underdogs’ documentary was also aired on national television. But the best part is, we exceeded our campaign target by achieving a 36% increase in the number of dogs adopted. That's over 2,200 dogs every single month that found a new home and a new start in life.