Creative Execution

We created the world’s first online game of fetch where people could play with the shelter dogs at Pets Haven from their laptops no matter where they are located. One simple click on our facebook app activated a machine, that threw a real ball in real time to a real dog. Users got to see the dogs in action live from their laptops via a video feed. And for every minute that the user plays with the shelter dogs, Eukanuba donated 5 bowls of Eukanuba to help the shelter dogs at Pets Haven.

Users engaged with our facebook page for an average of 10 minutes (5x longer than the facebook norm). The campaign reached 1.2 million facebook users. Free print and TV coverage reached one in five Australians. Eukanuba's facebook page also enjoyed 578% growth in weekly new fans. And Eukanuba donated 29,000 bowls of food - enough to feed the dogs for a whole year. And when users played with the shelter dogs via the app, they fell in love. All 66 Play Fetch dogs were adopted after the seven-day campaign along with 42 cats. All with a media spend of US$5,500.

As a specialist pet food brand, Eukanuba has a very limited marketing budget compared to mainstream rivals. However, Eukanuba is involved in consistent CSR initiatives. One such programme was a partnership with Pets Haven Animal Shelter, where Eukanuba had committed to donating a year's supply of food. The marketing objective was to maximize this CSR activity's commercial benefit with minimum media investment while giving something back to our facebook community – the key TA of the campaign. We created a compelling facebook application that allowed users to play fetch with the dogs in Pets Haven live and online. Simply by clicking a button, a machine was activated – throwing a ball to a real dog in real time. For every minute of playtime, Eukanuba donated 5 bowls of food to the shelter. The desired outcome was to increase engagement with our facebook community and increase brand affinity through Eukanuba's CSR.