BONE APPETIT

TitleBONE APPETIT
BrandK9 NATURAL
Product / ServiceNATURAL TOPPERS DOG FOOD
CategoryE02. Costs / Creative Performance PR Campaign
EntrantMANGO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Idea Creation MANGO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
PR MANGO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Production MANGO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Credits

Name Company Position
Ian Benet Mango Account Director
Dean Taylor Mango Head of Digital PR
Amber Young Mango Account Manager
Jo O'Sullivan K9 Natural Head of Marketing
Holly Hatch-Stevens Mango Account Executive
Maddy Surie K9 Natural Brand Manager

The Campaign

We focused on one key insight: Dog owners who care about the quality of the food they are eating will also care about the quality of the food they are feeding their dog. So we created Bone Appetit – a doggy degustation menu to be served at two well-known premium cafes in Auckland. Over four weekends, café patrons visiting either café with a dog were offered a free meal for their pooch from the K9 Bone Appetit menu, with a doggy bag of the new product and information to take home afterwards.

The Brief

Total budget (excluding agency fees and product) of NZ$17,000: - $3,800 for launch event production, including photography and videography, dog talent and trainers, dog outfits, catering - $11,200 for sampling production costs, including menu design and print, branded collateral and signage, doggy bag printing and production, brand ambassadors - $2,000 for paid influencer partnership with Chelsea Winter (only paid media)

Execution

Relationship development: -We teamed up with the media-friendly Hipgroup which owns Takapuna Beach Café and Café on Kohi – both in affluent suburbs and doggy friendly Media and influencer relations: -Staged a photo opportunity with our hired dog-stars enjoying a K9 Natural brunch while wearing branded ties and bandanas -Invited media to attend launch event at Takapuna Beach Café, securing an exclusive TV story with primetime news show, Newshub -Implemented a comprehensive media outreach plan, sharing images and videos of the dogs, using K9 Natural and Hipgroup spokespeople to encourage dog owners to visit -Negotiated celebrity chef, Chelsea Winter, to attend with her dog and share content with her large social audience Sampling: -Bone Appetit menus created to mirror the café’s own -Branded K9 Natural doggy bags with product samples, information and stockist cards given to customers -Signage and branded collateral featuring hashtags to encourage social content sharing by customers

We smashed all of our objectives. Media and influencers lapped up the story, our target audience couldn’t get enough of the doggy degustation menu, and consumers headed online and in-store in droves to buy the new product. Communications objectives: - 18 pieces of media coverage (target of 10) including primetime TV news, front page of the local paper and covered three times on the biggest news site in the country (stuff.co.nz), with an estimated PR value of $150k - 54 pieces of social content (target of 15), generating more than 4,000 comments - Cumulative reach of more than 5 million (target of 1 million or quarter of population) - 800 product samples (target of 500) - 100% positive sentiment and all coverage included key messages and brand mentions Business objectives: - A 65% lift in traffic to the K9 Natural website (target of 10%) and more people visited the K9 Natural website on launch day than any other day that year - Sales well above targets and Progressive NZ (184 supermarkets) agreed to start stocking the product after seeing the campaign - Campaign replicated in Sydney and San Francisco

The Situation

K9 Natural is a boutique natural dog food company in New Zealand, competing against big global brands in stores. With a very small budget, we were briefed to raise awareness, grow advocacy and drive sales of their new Toppers range. Off the back of one key insight, we launched a PR campaign that had media and influencers lapping up the story, and their dogs lapping up the new product. We not only featured on primetime TV news and the country’s largest news site, the cute and quirky content helped generate numerous social posts, all contributing to record sales.

The Strategy

K9 Natural sits at a higher price point than competitors, targeting those in high socio-economic groups who are passionate about giving their pets the best nutrition they can. To ensure we secured mass media news coverage at launch, along with creating FOMO with social and influencer content, our strategy was all about capturing cute and quirky content; dogs eating food like humans at cafés. Strategic pillars included: 1. Partnering with the right cafés that had a similar ethos and target market as K9 to substantiate premium claims 2. Capturing cute and quirky content with the doggy models 3. Media and influencer launch event to start the campaign with a bang 4. Ongoing social and influencer content calendar to drive customers to the cafes over the four weekends Our channel strategy focused on traditional media (broadcast, print and online across news, food, lifestyle), selected influencers and owned social channels.

Links

Website URL