Every day in the US, healthy dogs are abandoned to shelters and are never adopted because of lack of awareness by the general public. So to give these forgotten mutts a little bit more visibility we created a social media-centric campaign called: #muttbombing.

We Photoshopped real adoptable dogs into people’s selfies on Instagram. We targeted celebrities as well as local residents and each one had a personalized message, from the dog’s point of view, asking to be adopted. We then reposted the photo on Dallas Pets Alive!’s Instagram account and tagged the person in the picture.

A campaign landing page was created where people could see the before and after photos as well as a url where they could learn how to adopt the dog. In a little over a month the campaign generated over 146 million media impressions that ranged from CNN, Fast Company, Time Magazine and The New York Times to Guy Kawasaki and Dreamworks. The campaign also boosted our Instagram following by a whopping 300% but most importantly dog adoptions went up 55%.

We searched Instagram for the best selfies from celebrities, bloggers and local residents and Photoshopped real adoptable pets into them. Users were tagged on the photo and each one was captioned with personalized message, from the dog’s point of view, asking to be adopted. A link drove them to a website where they could see their original selfies next to the muttbombed one and information on how to adopt the dog. We created 64 pieces of content over a 4-week campaign that ended with the most epic selfie to date: The Oscars Selfie.

With a total budget of $0 USD, the campaign achieved global viral status snagging over 146 million traditional and online media impressions, receiving coverage from national media outlets like CNN, New York Times, USA Today and Time Magazine. Not to mention nods from Guy Kawasaki, Dreamworks and Fast Company praising the new approach to pet adoption. Instagram followers grew by 300% and #muttbombing became a trend other shelters across the U.S. and in the UK quickly adopted. Muttbombing was more than just a viral hashtag, it increased adoptions by a much needed 55%.