New Zealand’s animal shelters were at breaking point after experiencing the largest influx of abandoned puppies in decades. Contributing factors were a severe national cost of living crisis, a three month backlog of de-sexing operations, and thousands of people finding themselves no longer able to look after their pets after returning to the office.

PEDIGREE’s purpose is to help every shelter dog find a loving home. That’s why the brief was simple; find a fresh way to match families without dogs, to dogs without families – with an insightful, entertaining and meaningful idea.

Telling people about the shelter crisis could lead to compassion fatigue, so we were tasked to focus on the positives of pet parenthood instead.

We’ve always known that dogs bring out the good in people. They support us, fix our bad days, and remind us we are loved. No one needed that more than teenagers.

Did you know the rational part of a teenager’s brain (the frontal lobe) switches off momentarily to allow the rest of the brain to develop? That’s why teenagers behave, well, like teenagers. The solution? Adoption. No, not adopting out your teenager. Adopting a shelter dog. Because the perfect antidote to teenage volatility is the unconditional love and goodness of a dog. When their brain switches off, turn their heart back on. Adopt a dog.

The combined radio placements reached an estimated 941,220 listeners.

Site traffic on MyHooman, our pet adoption platform, went up by 15% year on year.

Sign ups increased by over 10% compared to the previous month.

31% of site visitors started an adoption application, demonstrating a highly engaged audience.

Over 500 adoption applications were approved during the campaign period.