The Campaign

Less and less people are visiting shelter homes these days. So, we needed other ways to bring people face to face with shelter dogs. Creatively, we wanted to make searching for a dog as simple, as accessible and as fun as it possibly could be. This meant we had to consolidate every single shelter dog from every shelter around the country into one central database. We wanted to help change perceptions about all shelter dogs being damaged; we needed people to make an immediate connection with the dogs so they could see just how healthy they really are. So, in every way possible, we wanted to bring the shelter dogs to the people.

Success of the Campaign

This became Australia’s most successful re-homing campaign to date with 26 million media impressions and over 200,000 bowls of dog food donated via Facebook ‘Likes’. Dog-A-Like became the 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 online ‘Underdogs’ documentary was also aired on national television. 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.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

By first centralising every single dog in the country into the one database, people could now search instantly by breed, size and location. Then, we literally brought the dogs to the people by creating Underdog Day at Bondi Beach. 1.5km of yellow branded dog leads were tied to Bondi’s foreshore, each with a profile of a shelter dog waiting to be adopted. Through a unique code attached every profile, people could find out more online and adopt them. 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 based on the insight that dogs look like their owners. It not only finds your perfect match, it let’s you adopt them. We even filmed an 8 part online documentary following the lives of five Underdogs from homelessness to their forever loving homes.