Pedigree not just for working dogs - even the unemployed get help

Don´t we love marketing success stories? Marketing Magazine are great at presenting case studies on their site http://www.marketingmag.com.au/. Detailed information and numbers, proving the value for the brand, makes them useful for strategic planners selling in similar ideas.

This came out yesterday:

Pedigree believes every dog deserves a loving home, but sadly over 100,000 unwanted dogs are euthanised in Australia every year. To improve this plight, each year Pedigree partners with not-for-profit organisation, PetRescue, to enlist the help of Australians nationwide.

Over the course of two years, the Pedigree Adoption Drive raised over $675,000 towards improving the life of homeless dogs. In 2009 alone, over 3000 dogs were rescued.

Running from 4 June to 30 July 2010, this year’s campaign was designed to raise awareness for the plight of dogs. Australians were encouraged to lend their support for the worthy cause by visiting www.pedigreeadoptiondrive.com.au and either adopting a homeless dog, donating online or buying Pedigree, with a portion of the proceeds from each specially marked pack going to PetRescue.

For the 2010 campaign, Pedigree and PetRescue assembled a team of leading agencies including Whybin\TBWA\Tequila, Starcom, DEC Communications and Digital Democracy in order to mobilise the multitude of marketing mediums available to them.

Results

Thousands of Australians threw their support behind the annual initiative, demonstrating how willing the country’s dog lovers really are to lend a hand to paws in need.

The initiative came to an end with a record number of dogs saved, thanks to the 2010 Pedigree Adoption Drive and the efforts of everyday Australians.

Pedigree is pleased to announce that a record 4238 dogs were saved and given new homes during this year’s drive. Since the campaign’s inception only three years ago, the total number of dogs saved now exceeds 8000.

While the primary objective of the program is to raise awareness and encourage the Australian community to save homeless dogs through adoption, the campaign also raised $150,108 in donations to PetRescue, which will assist in its ongoing endeavours to save more dogs.

The Pedigree Adoption Drive website received an incredible 154,000 unique visitors throughout the campaign, and the PetRescue site saw a 41 percent increase on site visits to PetRescue – thanks to awareness generated by the various promotional activities.

The 2010 campaign has already received recognition from the industry, picking up several awards. Media agency, Starcom MediaVest, recently dominated the Media Federation Awards, with four wins including the major Grand Prix Award.

Digital agency Tequila has also won awards for its part in the campaign. Tequila’s ‘Pedigree Adoption Drive Application’ was declared the winner of the first round of the fifth annual Creative Showcase, Australia’s leading free online award for creativity in digital advertising.

The campaign from Tequila centred on driving dog lovers to Facebook. Within just three months the fan page secured over 40,000 supporters, which was more than twice the target set by Pedigree and, for the first 50,000 fans, a bowl of dog food will be donated to a rescue group thanks to Pedigree.

Speaking of the campaign, Andrew Scott, managing director of Whybin\TBWA\Tequila, says, “In 2009, the ‘Pedigree Adoption Drive’ was an overwhelming success. Our brief this year was to continue to educate Australians on this important cause and significantly improve on the results from the last two years, and we have successfully achieved these goals. We look forward to working with Pedigree, PetRescue and all of the other creative agencies on building another successful campaign in 2011.”