A puppy’s cuteness can sometimes hide a horrible reality.

So we used that cuteness to land our message.

We created Suzy, an incredibly cute, soft toy puppy, riddled with disease. Parvovirus, fleas, conjunctivitis and diarrhoea.

This multi-faceted campaign centred around the real-world creation of Suzy Puppy, who acted as a tool to drive awareness. The toys were displayed in selected pet shops and animal stores.

Suzy even lobbied the UK Parliament, where every single Member of Parliament was given a Suzy Puppy to understand the abuse and lobby to change the law.

The campaign was amplified online too, in a saccharine sweet, harrowing film where Suzy’s suffering was brought to life in a unique and shocking way.

Direct communication was the central focus and force for bringing the Suzy Puppy story to life in a tangible way.

750 Suzy Puppies were produced over 3 months. Once they were hand boxed, tagged and finalised, we worked with IFAW on a bespoke event in the UK Parliament, where all 500 MPs were given a Suzy puppy. The packaging not only brought to life the candy-sweet 90s style toy which was reflected in the film, but also provided the audience with a clear guide and helpful steps to show their constituents how to avoid unwittingly taking part in cruel puppy trafficking.

250 of the toys were then used to target media outlets and influencers, but more importantly they were placed in key toy and pet shops along with leaflets so local communities could understand the scale of the crisis and how they can help.

Overall, the campaign received an estimated PR view coverage of 194,000, from over 21 pieces of national coverage. This led to a huge spike in traffic to the IFAW website, with over 69,400 visits since the launch where people spent over a minute interacting with the charity and the work they are doing.

Overall, the campaign hashtag #nomumnosale received 650 mentions, with the most influential tweets coming from Katie Banks – Celebrity News Editor of Closer Magazine (which generated 46 retweets and 113 likes) and naturalist broadcaster Chris Packham (which generated 201 retweets and 175 likes).

But most importantly, 12 UK Members of Parliament created and shared films and images of Suzy and her packaging, generating political energy and conversation around this issue and making legislative change to the animal welfare act a real possibility.