Affinity, a leading pet food brand, has just launched Comunimals, its new online community for pets and their owners. Our goal is to create awareness about the launch of the new website and drive web traffic and registrations on the new website. The awareness should rise on specialised media and VIP blogs, forums which are already creating contents about cats and dogs, but also on mass media so anyone owning a pet could learn from our new launch. All this must be done with a highly effective low cost campaign because there is no traditional media ad spending involved.

So we sent out a press release to awaken the interest of journalists, bloggers and above all, their pets: The Pet Food Release. Developed using Affinity pet food. 100% edible for cats and dogs.

The pet food release was accompanied by a viral video showing the production process and interest among pets.

The campaign has great results in terms of number of media creating buzz about the campaign, media coverage and web traffic to the new website.

All started with just an innovative press release addressed to key opinion leaders, making a clear statement on how PR could work to drive digital results.

Our goal is to create awareness about the launch of the new website and drive web traffic and registrations on the new website.

The awareness should rise on media and VIP blogs, forums which are already creating contents about cats and dogs, and need to understand what´s difference on Comunimals to be engaged enough to talk about us on their own media.

Remember what make us different: Comunimals is all about happier pets.

But also be innovative enough to create interest among mass media, so anyone owning a pet could learn from our new launch.

Thanks to sent pet food releases and the viral video, the press release was published in 190 general media, all specialized media and 80 blogs, ¡n all of them with a ratio of positive mentions of 100%!

The effect achieved through the media amounted to €250,000 based on an investment of under €25,000, which was 46% above planned on PR activation planned.

71 dogs and 36 cats were spontaneously documented by journalist and bloggers to eat the press release.

There was no other media spending to promote the new website, and this sole campaign was able to generate almost 16.000 visits to website on the first month, and more than 1.500 registrations, meaning a 17% of the registration goal planned for the website for the whole first year of activities, proving the power and potential of a well-driven PR campaign.

We sent out a press release to awaken the interest of journalists, bloggers and above all, their pets:

The Pet Food Release. Developed using Affinity pet food.

100% edible for cats and dogs.

Ingredients.

100 gr of Affinity’s Ultima pet food

50 gr of butter

125 gr of flour

200 gr of fructose

30 cl of water

• We selected a relevant key opinion leaders and journalists from collected databases based on the criteria that they have cats or dogs.

•We made 300 press releases: 190 for dogs and 110 for cats.

•Personalised with the pet’s real name.

We also created a making of video entitled to work as a viral video to prove the actual recipe of the pet food release and generate buzz.

Affinity, a leading pet food brand, has just launched Comunimals, its new online community for pets and their owners. The new community is a hub of contents and services to help customers to enhance their relationships with their dogs and cats and at the same time, boost awareness and an emotional bond with the Affinity pet food brands.

The problem is the digital ecosystem is full of websites, forums, blogs… about cats and dogs and we need to highlight what makes Comunimals different.

Despite other websites, Comunimals is all about the pet nor about the human part of the relationship.

We were running on a low budget to spread the launch of Comunimals and get the media involved. Had we sent the usual press release we would have been just one more among so many others.

With the idea of a low budget in mind, we thought of a flat mailing that would pass as a press release without being one. And not just that, the execution should communicate itself the product we wanted to announce. We mixed the journalists’ world (with the press release) with the animals’ world (with the pet food) to create the Pet Food Release.