Lincoln was in the middle of filming their holiday sales commercial, a story about a young woman being reunited with her childhood dog, when the news of the California Camp Fire broke. The disaster — the worst regional wildfire in a century — left thousands of people homeless, and over 1,400 dogs separated from their owners. Dangerous conditions drove the US National Guard to erect barriers effectively shutting down access to the area, at the same time as shelter overcrowding was putting an urgent countdown clock on the lives of victims’ pets. As an empathetic brand that cares about families, Lincoln felt a responsibility to use their clout to get some boots on the ground and get the word out. With that, we set out to reunite real-life dogs and owners separated in the blaze.

Lincoln seeks empathetic solutions to everyday problems. This same sense of compassion and innovative thinking went into finding an efficient and effective solution for reuniting the displaced Camp Fire dogs with their owners. Lincoln partnered with Instagram’s biggest dog influencer, ‘The Dogist’, to transform his page into a virtual lost and found.

By tapping into Lincoln’s resources and connections, we gained access to highly restricted disaster zones, then equipped The Dogist with a capable set of wheels so he could move easily throughout the area, photographing as many dogs as possible within a narrow window of time. Then, leveraging the combined social reach of Lincoln and The Dogist, we shared our findings with more than 4 million users, effectively bringing the lost dog poster into the digital age, at scale. Each post featured a photo, backstory, shelter ID number and link to the NVADG reunification site.

Our message was targeted toward consumers with a high affinity for philanthropy, as well as luxury automotive enthusiasts. These individuals, the so-called “Cultural Progressives,” rely on influencers to stay in the know within their various areas of interest. With this in mind, we identified a macro-influencer, The Dogist, who could catalog the dogs found in the aftermath of the California fires, then share that information out to as many people as possible. Through The Dogist’s vast reach, our target was able to easily access and amplify pets’ individual details, helping to reconnect traumatized dogs with their families via social media.

The content was optimized for Instagram, but also ran successfully in both paid and organic video view campaigns on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, with a Facebook and Instagram frequency of 1.0-1.1 The campaign was active from December 18-31, 2018, and consisted of one longform documentary-style video and two shorter cutdowns, as well as a series of still photos published organically to both The Dogist’s and Lincoln’s owned channels, for a total of 45 placements across four platforms. The video content chronicled the efforts of the people on the ground caring for the animals, while the still images were published with the sole goal of triggering recognition and leading to reunions between dogs and their humans.

Thousands of people across the country reached out looking to donate, volunteer and adopt. The response prompted The Dogist team to establish a crowdfunding site, which doubled its original goal within a month. Since Lincoln’s efforts began, nearly all of the 1,400 animals have been reunited with their families, and the remaining 30 adopted by new ones. The North Valley Animal Disaster Group received an outpouring of donations and recorded a historic spike in volunteer numbers. The documentary Lincoln created continues to serve NVADG, now as a critical tool for engaging with potential donors.

This campaign was Lincoln’s highest performing of the year on Instagram, earning over 2,998,753 impressions, 1,108,540 video views (on YouTube) and 900,697 total engagements. Not coincidentally, Lincoln also closed out the year with their highest holiday sales numbers in a decade.