Affinity Petcare, a leader on the pet food market for dogs and cats in Spain, has just launched Comunimals – its new online community for pets and their owners. It wanted to show it to bloggers and leading experts in the sector as well as mass media so that it could reach everyone that had a pet. But how do you make such a specialized website appealing to mass media?

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.

We created the first press release made out of pet food to present Comunimals:

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

• 25 gr of flour

• 200 gr of fructose

• 30 cl of water

• We selected from the database 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 selected from the database based on the basic principles for cats and dogs.

We made 300 press releases from pet food, personalised with the pet’s real name.

190 for dogs and 110 for cats.

A making-of of the creative process was made.

The press release was published on 190 general media, all specialized media and 80 blogs.

The effect achieved through the media amounted to €250,000. based on an investment of under €25,000.

71 dogs and 36 cats ate the press release.