The objective was to raise awareness of City Parks Foundations, its programs and help raise valuable donations.

Whilst New Yorkers are familiar with the city’s parks, knowledge of CPF and its programs is still relatively low. In fact, Summerstage (CPF’s lead music program) was perhaps better known that CPF itself.

With New Yorkers notoriously short on time, it was critical to find a unique and humorous way to connect. So we decided to play off the traditional notion of humans adopting animals.

Nobody knows more about the city’s parks than squirrels, so what better way to disseminate information than through a trusted animal friend. Squirrels are unique too in that they are as presentwithin the natural confines of the park as they are in urban areas.

It was important that NYC’s wildlife played a role in communications due to the inextricable link between CPF and green space.

Despite the absence of a media budget, we saw this as an opportunity to create some truly unique messaging.

Whilst the majority of print and OOH media space was donated by partners and supporters of City Parks Foundation, we decided to create our own free media space with the world’s first guerilla, “squirrel to squirrel” advertising campaign.

We created a number of mini squirrel billboards, complete with lights and strategically placed them off the beaten track in Central Park.

These units encouraged squirrels to take pity on their less fortunate human counterparts and adopt them. This was supplemented by a series of mini-squirrel t-shirts that were handed out at CPF events to create buzz.

This “squirrel-to-squirrel” approach proved to be the perfect counterpoint to subway and bus shelter advertising encouraging humans to put themselves up for adoption.

The campaign received great buzz across social channels with New Yorkers tweeting images of subway signs, bus-shelter advertising and also the mini squirrel billboards. However, it also gleaned specific results:

• Following the campaign, attendance at SummerStage (CPF’s flagship musical program) increased by 24% in the outer boroughs in 2012.

• Followers/likes doubled on CPF Facebook, and Twitter accounts

• There was a 3% growth in electronic newsletter subscribers

• Approximately 1,000 New Yorkers were adopted.

• Over 100 brand new donors were encouraged to give to the CPF cause.