Purina Adoption Campaign

Purina Petcare leads the industry in providing food and resources that nourish our pets and enrich their lives. Across the country, Purina also pursues partnerships with animal shelters and pet welfare organizations to advocate for animal happiness and well-being.

Role

Campaign Branding
Art Direction
Photography
Content Strategy
Event Marketing

Industry

Consumer Products
Pet Care

Our work on Purina's #ConsiderAShelterPet campaign focused on increasing shelter pet adoptions through the use of print media, billboards, social media, and landing pages.

The Challenge

For the last several years, we’ve worked closely with Purina to develop an annual campaign dubbed #ConsiderAShelterPet. The campaign encourages St. Louis families to explore the benefits of adopting pets from local shelters, which have been plagued with misperceptions over the conditions of their facilities and quality of their pets.

Our goal this year was to transition the campaign’s core message of changing misperceptions into a more action-oriented message that drives people to adopt from their local shelters.

We provided art direction for all of the photography used in the campaign. Each photo features real shelter pets and their real owners, all from around the St. Louis area.

Our adoption campaign strategy featured billboard design, placed in key areas throughout the greater St. Louis area.

Our Approach

This year’s campaign was special from the beginning, as we were asked to lead Purina’s inter-agency team in setting the campaign’s creative direction and ensuring its execution across digital, social and out-of-home channels.

This campaign also featured the debut of a new partner—Urban Chestnut Brewing Company (UCBC). The brewery partnered with Purina to bring into retail stores across St. Louis its highly anticipated beer, Urban Underdog, bearing the #ConsiderAShelterPet campaign details. We were thrilled to work with UCBC as we coordinated co-branding and packaging for this rollout.

We partnered with Urban Chestnut Brewing Company for the 2017 #ConsiderAShelterPet adoption campaign.

We provided art direction for the campaign's photo shoot. All photography featured local shelter pets and their forever families who adopted them.

Our campaign aligned with the launch of the Urban Chestnut Brewing Company Urban Underdog beer, which fit seamlessly into our adoption campaign.

Partnering with UCBC, Purina's 2017 adoption campaign we developed the campaign's messaging. "Raise a Pint for Pets" was featured on the social media posts that touted the partnership, while a strong call to action to "Adopt" was featured on the Purina social posts.

Creative Direction & Photography

We started by identifying a new creative direction for the campaign. In years past, creative was focused on spotlighting shelter pets and telling their unheard stories. This year, we positioned our creative to portray the joy of adopting a new friend and showcase the special relationships people have with their shelter pets.

In developing our new creative direction, we knew there was no better way to show off the love between people and their pets than through real people who had recently adopted their own shelter pets. We worked to identify a few local adopters, who stopped by our office with their best friends for a photoshoot.

We provided art direction for the adoption campaign's photoshoot. Using real shelter pets and their owners, we were able to capture the joy of adopting.

Photography that shows real shelter pet and their owners helps to drive the call to action, encouraging viewers to adopt from local shelters.

The campaign's imagery showed the joy of adopting from a shelter by using real shelter pets and their owners.

We provided art direction for the adoption campaign's photoshoot, which was held in our St. Louis office.

Graphic Design

The images from the photoshoot became the heart of our creative across the campaign. We developed a series of billboards, banner ads, social media graphics and street graphics to connect audiences with our core message of adoption and raise awareness for the annual adoption event.

We designed the billboards for the #ConsiderAShelterPet campaign to promote the adoption event in late October 2017. Billboard designs featured an extended cutout to draw attention.

Our campaign strategy included both organic and paid social media posts. We used social to promote the adoption event, the partnership with Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, and drive the campaign message home.

We provided environmental design to promote the adoption campaign within the Purina office in St. Louis, including this elevator wrap that was found in the lobby.

The campaign was also promoted using out of home methods, including sidewalk graphics, billboards, and additional collateral.

Purina's 2017 #ConsiderAShelterPet adoption campaign was focused on encouraging adoptions from local shelters.

Content Strategy

With the campaign’s key imagery established, we developed a content strategy that sells readers on the total value of adoption through warm, emotional language. Our key vehicle for the campaign’s messaging was the ConsiderAShelterPet.com website, which we updated to align with our new direction.

A campaign landing page was designed to provide information on the adoption event and encourage adopting from your local shelter.

The campaign's strategy extended to mobile usage on the landing pages. We tracked campaign performance and engagement based on impressions and visits to the landing page.

Event Marketing

Our annual campaign culminates in the Better Together Adoption Event in Soulard Market Park hosted by Purina and attended by its shelter partners.

Attendance at the adoption event increased during our 2017 #ConsiderAShelterPet campaign, and the number of pets adopted that day increased too.

Our event marketing tactics included setting up a photobooth onsite to take each adopter's first family photo with their new pet.

As thousands of people stopped by the park to meet adoptable cats and dogs, we wanted to deliver a special token for those who took home a new pet that day. We worked to create a photo booth with the campaign photographer at the event and invited adopters to take their first family photo.

Our campaign was a tremendous success, driving record attendance at the adoption event and excellent awareness and impression metrics across the metro area. We’re so excited to have worked on this campaign for a number of years as we tell shelter pets’ stories and help St. Louis see them for the cute, lovable animals they are.

Shelters from across the greater St. Louis area were in attendance at the event, and each shelter had pets that were ready to be adopted. UCBC was at the adoption event, selling the Urban Underdog beer.

Purina's 2017 #ConsiderAShelterPet campaign was a success. The campaign saw an increased number of event attendees, increased social engagement, and increased adoptions tied to the event.

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