PEDIGREE UNDERDOG DAY

TitlePEDIGREE UNDERDOG DAY
BrandMARS PETCARE
Product / ServicePEDIGREE DOG ADOPTION
CategoryA01. Event & Field Marketing
EntrantWHYBIN\TBWA GROUP Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company:WHYBIN\TBWA GROUP Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Sales Promotion/Advertising Agency:WHYBIN\TBWA GROUP Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

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 Kongasiou Whybin\tbwa\tequila Sydney Campaign Manager

The Brief

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.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

We discovered up to 40,000 people and their dogs were going to be at Bondi Beach on any given Saturday. So in one day we transformed Bondi Beach into Underdog Day. 1.5km of yellow branded dog leads were tied along Bondi’s entire foreshore (also one of Australia’s most popular dog walking tracks). At the end of each lead was the image and profile of an actual 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 about each dog and adopt them.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

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.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Rather than a random shotgun effect of aiming and hoping for the best, we used targeted media to find out where the largest and most receptive number of Australians would be on any given weekend - Bondi Beach. We then tied 1.5km of dog leads and dog profiles along the entire foreshore, a place where actual dogs are often tied everyday. This engaged people immediately, stopping them in their tracks and compelling them to read the shelter dog profiles as they wandered the length on the beach. It also directed them online to find out more.