BeFriend public advertising integrated campaign.
OBJECTIVE
“There are approximately two million strays in Russia’s 11 World Cup host cities and it has been estimated that local authorities will spend up to £119 million on catching, caging, sterilizing and euthanising animals this year”. /The Guardian, May 2018/
In the run-up to the World Cup in Russia, media around the world were flooded with articles furious about the destiny of stray dogs in Russia. In eleven World Cup-hosting cities, massive numbers of dogs were caught and taken to shelters. And shelters could not host them all which literally meant for majority of them to be doomed to euthanasia.
Together NIKA, with a charitable fund for homeless animals assistance, we decided to save as many shelter dogs as possible.
STRATEGY
Catching the World Cup moment to save Russian shelter dogs.
The eve of the World Cup 2018 was the moment when an increased number of dogs was caught and taken to shelters. We decided to turn the problem into solution and used the global sport event conversely – as a media lead to draw the attention of people from all over the world and encourage them to adopt our shelter dogs. The moment when everybody’s eyes were fixed on Russia, we launched our ‘rescue’ campaign.
With no budget for media at all, we took advantage of celebrities’ support who inspired each other and their followers to join the project on befriendrussia.com.
The website and social media pages provided a personal presentation of dogs' profiles (similar to Facebook), inviting everyone to befriend a dog by adopting or sponsoring one or telling friends about the project.
CREATIVE IDEA
Я собака. I’m a dog. Je suis un chien. Ich bin ein hund.
The objective was simple: to inspire people save the lives of shelters dogs by adopting them. But how would we break through people’s indifference? Make them feel the tragedy of every dog?
The answer? By simply showing what it feels for a human to be at the place of a stray dog doomed to euthanasia.
We started with “I’m a dog” online video shot by famous director Ilya Naishuller and starring well-known actor Sasha Pal. A sign of support with the shelter dogs, the video showed a human at the place of a stray dog cornered by dog-hunters.
Inspired be the story other stars supported the project and started the #befriend challenge. Actors, singers, presenters, athletes, bloggers, media personalities published their dog-inspired visuals to their social media profiles and encouraged everyone to adopt dogs on the project's website.
Specially developed for the campaign, www.befriendrussia.com offered a variety of simple ways to help, and presented profiles of around 150 dogs in World Cup host cities. All dogs listed their own, almost human interests, including "swimming," "being faithful," or "watching Soviet movies." Just like a Facebook for dogs – except you can become friends in real life.
RESULTS
The campaign instantly gained national and global coverage by such media as BBC, FTBL, Buro 24/7, Cosmo, Harper’s Bazaar, Big Picture, OK!, Tatler and many others. They described the project and provided a link to www.befriendrussia.com
In a few weeks with a zero media budget we earned global media coverage, and reached 200% increase number of adopted dogs (as compared to the same period last year).
KEY NUMBERS:
Online video views: 1 421 257 in 2 weeks
Media impressions: 541 241 394
Social media interactions: 1 509 226
Media budget: $ 0
Earned media: $ 3 550 313
+200% increase number of adopted dogs (vs the same period last year).
Omni-Channel Campaign Development and Execution.
