After the initial surge in dog adoptions during the pandemic, the number of dogs being put into dog shelters is rising rapidly in the US. As part of Pedigree’s ongoing mission to end pet homelessness, they wanted to tell people the benefits of adopting a dog and reach people who could be potential adopters of rescue dogs.

It’s a proven fact that adopting a dog makes people happier, so we set out to reach potential adopters who were seeking a little happiness. But where could we find them? On the one platform where we knew people went to feel good - Spotify. We discovered that ‘Feel Good’ Playlists on Spotify had millions of listeners. Here were millions of people looking for a boost of happiness, when adopting a dog would provide them a lifetime of joy. So we partnered with owners of the most popular ‘Feel Good’ playlists and got them to swap out the normal playlist artwork for artwork featuring real adoptable rescue dogs, and a message to adopt. Listeners were linked to the dog’s adoption profile on Adoptapet.com (the biggest adoption search site in the US).

In a time where mental health and wellbeing have become a hot topic and a priority in our everyday lives, it was a logical strategy to promote the positive mental health benefits of adopting a dog. By directly targeting people who were seeking some ‘feel good’ vibes in their lives, we could find people who were open to the joy that a rescue dog can bring. We chose Spotify as our platform of choice because music makes people feel good, and ‘Feel Good’ playlists are the biggest playlist category on the platform. By hijacking these playlists with our rescue dog album covers, we found a quick, cheap way to reach millions of people who were looking for happiness.

We realized that we could reach a huge audience by using the Spotify playlist artwork as a media space, and could use this space to give mass exposure to rescue dogs who were looking for a home. To do this, we approached the owners of the most popular ‘Feel Good’ playlists on Spotify and asked them to replace their usual playlist artwork with our dogs. We organized a photo shoot for each dog, then designed custom album covers for each one, along with a message to adopt. Once a dog had been adopted, we replaced the artwork with another cover featuring a different dog. The campaign was supported by Spotify radio ads that targeted these playlist listeners, along with OOH and partnerships with record stores to place our albums instores.

By hijacking the playlist artwork on Spotify, we discovered an untapped media channel and a cost effective way to reach millions of listeners - 7 million to be precise. Which also meant reaching 7 million potential dog adopters. The Adoptable Playlist surprised and engaged our audience to outperform the Spotify benchmark for brand campaigns x45. Best of all, it led to a 4600% increase of adoption enquiries on Adoptapet.com, which meant a lot more rescue dogs found homes, and a lot of new owners found happiness. A feel good ending indeed.