Driving Dogs
Award: Wood Pencil
Wood Pencil / Digital Advertising / Integrated Digital Campaigns / 2013
In New Zealand, shelter dogs were seen as second rate compared to store bought animals, so finding them homes was a daily challenge for the SPCA. As a longstanding SPCA sponsor, MINI wanted to help. Our strategy was to demonstrate just how smart these dogs really are and to dispel the idea that they’re damaged, despite their abusive or difficult pasts. So, we taught three of them to drive a MINI and showed them, in a never- before-seen event, live on national TV. To build anticipation for the event, we released an online video with footage of the dogs in training, and seeded over 800 pieces of content across digital and social platforms. In one week, over 200 million saw the dogs driving. The campaign received more than $20 million in PR across over 70 countries. New Zealand saw a positive shift in attitudes toward shelter dogs, adoption interest increased by 590% and, most importantly, every SCPA dog was adopted.
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