To define a dog in the US, one phrase comes to mind: “Man’s best friend.” Like any expression, it’s been repeated so many times, it’s a part of our vernacular. But now it was time to tell the

other half of the story.

To do it, we filmed 7 real women and their best friends within their authentic environments and juxtaposed their stories with the speech from 1870 where the phrase “man’s best friend” was coined.

To generate a public conversation from our largely female audience, we launched the film at a moment ripe for dialogue: International Women’s Day. That same day we extended our message by partnering with The Huffington Post, Elias Weiss Freidman from the Dogist, actress Lucy Hale, and 12 strong female influencers to shine a spotlight on other women and their best friends.

The program was executed on a national scale. Leading up to March 8 the hero video content and partnership with Elias Friedman (of Dogist fame) we’re being developed in tandem. After capturing all images and stories, contracting Lucy Hale and 12 influencers, the program was ready to launch.

At launch the team issued a national, multimedia news release that included our hero film, Elias’s photography and Lucy Hale’s images with her dog.The team then immediately conducted extensive outreach to top-tier national entertainment press, pet trades, local NY outlets and top-tier online national publications.

In addition, the team partnered with Huffington Post to develop two editorial articles with themes around female empowerment.  The team also put paid support behind the hero video on digital and social media as well as a carousel post featuring five of Elias’s images of real women and Lucy Hale’s social post.

The launch of “Woman’s Best Friend Too” on International Women’s Day garnered over 54 million earned impressions from over 200 outlets in less than 24 hours. These outlets included popular pet specific sites such as The Dogington Post, but it also broke through in mainstream outlets like Entertainment Tonight & People.com, to name a few. This along with a Huffington Post “Powerful Women” editorial sponsorship created quite the splash at launch.

After just 4 weeks of the campaign, Woman’s Best Friend Too generated over 229MM impressions, with more that 70 percent of total impressions (167 MM) coming from earned media! In addition, the program generated more than 100,000 online engagements.

And, during this same 4 wk period, Woman’s Best Friend Too helped contribute to a +13.2% sale increase for Cesar wet dog food vs. the prior year.