Situation: So far, Pedigree did not get any media attention for their brand mission ''making sure every dog finds a loving home before 2030'' and their local initiatives as part of this. At the same time, the number of shelter dogs in the Netherlands has increased drastically in the past few years and shows no sign of slowing down.

Brief: Create a PR-worthy campaign to generate earned media around Pedigree's mission of making sure every dog finds a loving home before 2030, while also educating people about the importance of adopting shelter dogs base on characteristics and personality instead of looks.

Objective: Create awareness around Pedigree's purpose and highlight the problem around shelter dogs through earned media to persuade the Dutch public to rethink how to choose a dog.

Based on the insight that animal shelters are too full because dogs are chosen based on appearances instead of charactier, we came up with a digital guerrilla campaign to match shelter dogs with potential owners on dating apps. From dog to human using AI: we called it 'Dogfishing'!

We transformed shelter dogs into human dating profiles using AI and highlighted their character traits and personality in the photos and profile. Since we tend to look further than appearance only, when choosing our human life partner.

The dogs' human alter egos and dating profiles were uploaded to the dating apps Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge. When users matched with the 'human' profiles, they where informed that they had been ‘dogfished’ with the message that this a shelter dog waiting for a loving home instead of a human looking for love.

To inform current and future dog owners, mass awareness was our goal. We used a solid PR strategy: media was our main channel to convey our message and alert singles they might get dogfished that period.

Media relevance was guarded by partnering up with a (local) animal shelter that could support our message as non-commercial organisation.

By tailoring the leading PR angle and press release per media category (lifestyle, local, news, marcom, tech & gaming) we maximised the chance of success. We used on a bottom-up strategy and mainly targeting local media that amplified towards national and prime time TV attention (again: unpaid). The campaign led to 50 earned publications, 10.5 million reach in a tiny country, 400% website spike and most imporantly: 75% of the dogs adopted.

By creating AI generated profile pictures (by professional AI designers using ChatGPT & MidJourney) that highlighted the personality and character traits of the shelter dogs we cemented our key message in our story: don't base the choice for your dog on looks alone but find out if the dog is a proper match. E.g. easy Dog 'Lizz' was transformed into 'Lizzy', a beautiful lady who walks on the beach or quietly reads a book. Quite a challenge, since AI makes it difficult to apply the exact same appearance in different scenarios and show the same face with different facial expressions. The collaboration with the AI designers was progressive in this, the authenticity of the profiles has largely led to its success, as dating app users had to believe that it was a real person.

Because of a tight timeline (5 weeks) and media sensitivity around 'fake profiles' regarding dating apps, we decided on a guerrilla approach. Hijacking the three major dating apps (scale: Netherlands) without warning with our 'from dogs to human' AI transformed profiles.

To inform current and future dog owners, mass awareness was our goal. We used a solid PR strategy: media was our main channel to convey our message and alert singles they might get dogfished that period.

Media relevance was guarded by partnering up with a (local) animal shelter that could support our message. By tailoring the leading PR angle and press release per media category (lifestyle, local, news, marcom, tech & gaming) we maximised the chance of success - leading to national media attention, even on prime time TV (unpaid again). The campaign led to 50 earned publications, 10.5 million reach in a tiny country, 400% website spike and most imporantly: 75% of the dogs adopted.

Our humanized dog AI profiles matched with over 500 people. We got more than 50 earned (unpaid!) media publications resulted in a nation wide conversation in all types of media. Media coverage by the number one Dutch news media and two of our TV prime-time talkshows. Then it got also picked up internationally.

From 0 attention to +10.5 million reach in a country of 17.5 million people with zero paid components. Visits to the dog's animal shelter website spiked with 400% and most importantly; 75% of the dogs featured in the campaign were adopted.

Pedigree became known for its brand purpose and local initiatives as part of their ambition to find a home for every dog in 2030.

All of this with zero paid components. Our tailor-made approach, showing the power of local media publications getting picked up by national news and TV, and even international sources showed solid ROI.