Great results in just three days:• 1327 bones thrown;• 17.4% of people threw two or more times;• 25% of dogs needing homes adopted;• 600% increase in new volunteers;• Over $150,000 in free media from Optus, Inspire, Fairfax, News Limited and JCDecaux.

Dwarfed by bigger charities during a tough economic period, our objective was to create a unique idea for the Sydney Dogs & Cats Home, to boost awareness, donations and dog adoptions. But rather than use a ‘poor me’ charity approach, we decided to entertain people and engage them.

In Australia, ‘throw us a bone’ means 'please help us'. We created our own entertaining content, Frankie the Wonder Dog. We pioneered a convergent technology platform that enabled people to interact in real-time with him. People ‘threw’ Frankie a bone via SMS and received an instant dog trick in return. Every bone thrown was a $5 donation.

This idea was relevant because we created a ‘Wonder Dog’ for a dog’s home, and people love interacting with intelligent animals. The strength of the creative was that it used innovative media to encourage people to donate in a positive way and offer them an immediate reward.