Dog food products are generally categorized by size, either made for small, medium or large dogs. Puppo, a New York based pet nutrition company, sets itself apart by gathering data from each customer to create a bespoke meal for their dog, designed specifically to meet each dog’s health goals. We were tasked with introducing Puppo to NYC, to break through the FMCG mass-market, and differentiate the start-up from other pet food companies.

There are over 100,000 dogs in NYC, and every single one of them is unique.

Puppo, a pet nutrition company, gathers data from each customer to create a bespoke meal for these dogs. To launch Puppo in New York city, we reflected this personalization in our advertising - by creating a unique ad for every registered dog in New York City.

That’s 100,729 unique ads for every single one of the 100,729 dogs.

Pet nutrition is a big, well established and very competitive category. Despite its innovative product & service and its backing from Mars, Puppo is still a start-up and doesn’t have the resource for large scale advertising. Fortunately, Puppo’s personalized food for every dog, meant that a smaller, highly targeted campaign was the best solution.

We used three key data sources; 1. dog registration information (dog owners residing in NYC are required by law to license their dogs and the data was publicly available from the DOHMH Dog Licensing System within the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene, under The Freedom of Information Law) 2. breed, health issue and benefit information, and 3. NYC zip code boundaries. We used Google Maps as the most reliable source of zip code definition and boundaries.

We wanted to target dog owners who were already buying quality nutritional food and who have an instinctive feeling of responsibility towards their dog’s health. We wanted to direct them to sign up for a Puppo subscription plan for their dog, by demonstrating that each unique dog requires a unique dietary plan.

To reflect Puppo’s personalization in our advertising, we created a unique ad for every registered dog in New York City. All 100,729 of them.

We created a bespoke piece of technology that used an algorithm to create personalized placements. It utilised data from the NYC Dog Licensing Dataset, and linked each dog to a unique Puppo health benefit. It then input all this data into a sophisticated modular copy and art direction system, to generate thousands of combinations of iconography, colours and fonts alongside the dog’s name, breed and health benefit.

Posters and digital OOH targeted owners by zip code, within dog-walking distance to where they live. Placements were supported by geotargeted digital display to ensure we got the reach needed for every NYC dog to see their advert.

All executions whether it be by QR code or direct click through, led people directly to our e-commerce site.

New Yorkers responded well to the idea of 100,729 unique ads for dogs, and in turn sought out to get their dog their very own personalized meal plan. The Puppo website saw a 68% spike in new users in just one week. From those, 28% of new users came directly from our posters. In addition, there was a 144% increase in organic web searches for Puppo.

We set out to create a data-led campaign in order to individually address each dog in New York. We designed ‘Every Dog Has Its Ad’ to break through the traditional format of one-ad-for-100,000 consumers, and instead create an ad for every individual dog. Use of data allowed us to tackle this audience personalisation. By personalising our advertising, we were able to connect with our audience on a one-to-one level, and individualising the consumer experience was likely to a evoke a positive response.