Empty Nest Syndrome is the loneliness parents feel when their children leave home. But while these parents sit in a quiet house lamenting how quickly their kids grew up, a dog sits in a shelter longing for a home. A home it can fill with love and companionship. Our idea was to connect these abandoned dogs with lonely parents.

The Pedigree Child Replacement Programme targeted ‘Empty Nesters’ with a comically blunt campaign encouraging them to adopt a dog and ‘move on’ when their kids moved out. All work directed parents to our website (replacethem.co.nz) where they could match the characteristics of their child with the characteristics of an abandoned dog– ensuring the perfect replacement was found.

To further incentivise adoption we offered parents the chance to turn their child’s old stuff into new stuff for their dog. Bedspreads were turned into dog beds, and beloved jackets into dog jackets.

We launched The Pedigree Child Replacement Programme through three films that played in cinema, TV and online. When viewed online each film directly clicked through to replacethem.co.nz.

Click through banners on Skype took our message to lonely parents, while geo-targeted mobile banners encouraged parents in airports to visit our site the moment their kids left the country.

All work directed parents to replacethem.co.nz where they could match the characteristics of their child with the characteristics of a dog in a shelter – ensuring the perfect replacement was found.

To further incentivise adoption we offered parents the chance to turn their child’s old stuff into new stuff for their dog. Bedspreads were turned into dog beds, trophies into dog bowls and beloved jackets into dog jackets.

Everywhere parents were, we were there to offer them the love, laughter and companionship they’d been longing for in the form of a shelter dog.

The Pedigree Child Replacement Programme received global media attention, featuring on prime time news and driving mass interest in dog adoption. The campaign drove an 824% lift in dog adoption enquiries through animal shelters as well as a 16% lift in Pedigree’s sales.

Visits to the site far exceeded forecasted expectations, forcing us to find more shelter dogs to meet the demand. In six weeks we got more online dog adoption enquiries than in the last two years combined, helping to make The Pedigree Child Replacement Programme the most successful Adoption Drive campaign in almost a decade. In a country of just 4.5 million people, we achieved over 15m impressions during the campaign period.