The Lost Dogs Home faced the challenge of needing to find new ways of re-homing dogs and to change public perception of shelter dogs. The objectives of The Human Walking Program were to create an event that helped shift the public’s perception of shelter dogs and encourage adoption.

The strategy behind the event was to get office workers away from their desks and doing something different on their lunch break, coupled with raising awareness for the Home. Key public relations elements included targeted media relations, a media role out and leveraging talent such as local T.V. personnel Mike Larkan and Dani Wales to engage media with the event and raise awareness of the Home.

The strategy was brought to life through the inaugural Human Walking Program an outdoor advertising campaign supported by public relations designed to challenge stereotypes surrounding shelter dogs and encourage adoption by taking shelter dogs into downtown Melbourne and letting them take anxious office workers for a lunchtime walk.

As part of the strategy, public relations was central to the activities that helped change the public perception of shelter dogs with over 5,000 CBD workers and highly stressed suits rescued from behind their desks. The campaign’s key messages were picked up nationally through print, radio, online and major TV networks, with exposure to over 4,000,000 people.

Most importantly, every dog at the event was adopted, making it The Lost Dogs’ Home’s most successful campaign. The Human Walking Program will now be a regular national event.

From the outset we developed a targeted and phased media plan to tell the Human Walking Program story. The campaign plan of a focused media role out to secure maximum coverage was implemented in a three-week lead up period to April 4.

Major coverage was achieved across all channels; print, online, radio and television, with coverage in the two most highly read and circulated publications; mX and The Herald Sun, Metro broadcast stations Nova, Gold 104.3 and national news; Channel 10, 7 and 9.

The campaign ran according to the original plan with minor news coverage in the lead up to the event, major coverage in the two days prior on the day and post event coverage.

The Human Walking Program was attended by more than 5,000 anxious and stressed office workers who wanted to walk and spend time with a shelter dog.

Our message was picked up nationally in print, radio and every major television network with an exposure of over 4,000,000 people.

The Lost Dogs Home collected the contact details of each attendee and increase their database by over 1000%.

The Human Walking Program has become their most successful campaign ever and will now become regular national event.

Most importantly every single dog at the event was adopted.