Ad Council's The Shelter Pet Project - Start A Story. Adopt.
We challenged the misperceptions by providing examples of shelter pets that are perfect, healthy and happy. Pets that everyone knows and loves. The most famous dogs and cats today aren’t coming from Hollywood; they’re coming from the internet. Videos of dogs and cats can have millions of views. There are pets with millions of fans, followers and likes. Today, there are cat film festivals, pet agents and celebrity pet products. Many of these celebrity pets started as shelter pets.
We used the stories of celebrity pets and influencers to encourage people to tell their shelter pet adoption stories and create awareness and a movement toward adopting shelter pets. We began the campaign featuring the stories of our three celebrity pets: Keyboard Cat (8+ million views on YouTube), Toast (325k+ followers on Instagram), and Hamilton (82k+ followers on Instagram). We leveraged the social media channels of over 70 cause supporters, both pets and humans, to support the campaign by telling their story of adopting a shelter pet. And at every touchpoint we encouraged people to share their stories in social media with hashtag #startastoryadopt.
VML is a leading creative company that combines brand experience, customer experience, and commerce, creating connected brands to drive growth. VML is celebrated for its innovative and award-winning work for blue chip client partners including AstraZeneca, Colgate-Palmolive, Dell, Ford, Intel, Microsoft, Nestlé, The Coca-Cola Company, and Wendy's. The agency is recognized by the Forrester Wave™ Reports, which name WPP as a “Leader” in Commerce Services, Global Digital Experience Services, Global Marketing Services and, most recently, Marketing Measurement & Optimization. In addition, VML’s specialist health network, VML Health, is one of the world’s largest and most awarded health agencies. VML’s global network is powered by 30,000 talented people across 60-plus markets, with principal offices in Kansas City, New York, Detroit, London, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Sydney.
VML is a WPP agency (NYSE: WPP).