Pedigree Dog Adoption Chile

Pedigree’s mission is to improve the health and livelihood of all dogs-everywhere. Chile’s capital Santiago has a huge number of abandoned dogs – 220,000 – which cause public health and safety issues. There was a major local scandal about the abuse of dogs at the hands of their so-called protectors in the Animal Protection Association. Pedigree’s challenge was to generate a sense of compassion amongst Chilean people and encourage them to think very carefully before taking on dogs. Most people cared about dogs, but weren’t sure how they could help all of the abandoned dogs. Often consumers couldn’t distinguish between pet dogs and street dogs. Pedigree aimed to connect with consumers out of home and offer an emotional and potent message that would resonate with any citizen during normal daily activities.

To keep momentum and remind Chileans of the scandal highlighted by the Animal Protection Association, branded street teams distributed La Hora - popular daily free newspaper - on the morning of our launch. A custom Pedigree front page featured an abandoned dog and then launched into a news story, complete with information and statistics about street dogs. Interactive bus shelter installations featured a screen with a video that simulated an abandoned dog crying and scared in a wooden refuge. There were also Pedigree Adoption billboards and city-lights peppered throughout main avenues in Santiago. They brought the abandoned dogs to life by giving each one a name, with messages that read, “My name is Lulu please adopt me”. An event was also organized for key celebrities who had adopted abandoned dogs.

Some 2,125 dogs were adopted and the Adoption campaign achieved a 12% spontaneous recall, 20% above product campaign on air at the time of Millward Brown field work. The whole activity helped to improve brand health KPIs of Pedigree: 54% have a “very positive” bond with Pedigree (2x times above category average).