Franklin | Masterdog

Insight

Between 2008 and 2012, the pet products market in Chile, including food and accessories, grew by 37% because of the change in the relationship between people and their pets. Today, more than ever before, there is a greater concern with delivering more tailored pet products with top notch quality and variety, such as balanced diets, clothing, personalised accessories and various other perks that people give to their pets which almost humanise the animals: grooming salons, gifts, toys and even vacation. People today consider their pets another member of the family.

The insight for this campaign was based on the milestone that many newlyweds take before having a baby: owning a dog. This is the time. When the man and woman begin the division of tasks and chores, they take on their first shared responsibilities in their lives as a couple and they embrace the feeling that someone else depends on them. The dog becomes the centre of attention and they start their new routine: Feeding, walking, grooming, etc. So Masterdog’s brand challenge was to become the catalyst for this unconditional love that people have for their pets, through a communication that positions the concept of “Dog Lover” embedded in your DNA.

Strategy

Masterdog’s communication strategy is anchored in this insight, the moment when people and especially a couple become “Dog Lovers”, or “New parents”, simply when they make their new pets part of their families.

One of the most successful late night series on Chilean TV “Single Again” featured as protagonists a newlywed couple, which fitted perfectly with the consumer insight. Now all they needed was a dog in their lives!

The first challenge was to convince the writers to include a pet in the plot of the story. Once Initiative knocked down that barrier, it gave life to “Franklin“, the mega cute, furry leading character of “Single Again”. The script then transformed the fun couple Zamir & Fabiola, into a pair of adorable “dog lovers”, they were now new parents “to Masterdog´s Franklin”.

During the soap opera, Masterdog took centre stage in Franklin´s daily routine and certainly one of the most important times of the day for any puppy: Feeding time. Samir and Fabiola fed Franklin with Masterdog food. Sometimes, even Franklin came into the scene with a Masterdog food package in his mouth to be fed by its owners which added even more “Awwww” moments to the series, making a direct connection with the audience.

Execution

Once Masterdog was officially in the writer´s mind, Franklin seamlessly became part of the story. After many difficulties to conceive, Zamir and Fabiola adopted Franklin as their new, and first “baby”. The content was so well received and embedded into the script, that the presence of Franklin lived throughout the entire first season and made it to the list of 2013´s most-watched series. In addition to the branded content component in “Single Again”, the Facebook Fan Page of Zamir and Fabiola featured a photo of Masterdog´s Franklin positioned right next to the product, which yielded very good interaction and positive feedback from the social community, proving Franklin´s increasing popularity.

Franklin´s success with the public allowed Masterdog to transform the brand image of its campaigns to three new products launches (extension line). All three launches featured Franklin in the advertising material and collaterals, helping to strengthen the brand´s positioning achieved with the popularity of the TV show. The appearance of Franklin across mass media was spontaneous: his popularity generated interviews with his TV parents Zamir and Fabiola, and features with his coach and the series director, who referred to Franklin as "actor ad honorem".

Results

Following the campaign there was a general increase in all of Masterdog’s KPI´s: Brand and Sales: +10.4% in the share of sales volume (Nielsen ) +6 points overall TOM (IPSOS).

Franklin gained huge awareness and association with the brand, highlighting that 90% of respondents associated Franklin with Masterdog and over 30% spontaneously identified with the brand message around close, family-like pet-owner relationship.

The Zamir and Fabiola Facebook page gained a total of 2,511 likes and 34,000 visits with Franklin´s first appearance on the show. Top of mind soared from 12% to 33% once the campaign was over. In addition, Franklin´s YouTube channel received 15,000 views during the course of the campaign.

BRAND: Masterdog

CATEGORY: Pet Care

REGION: Chile

DATE: August - December 2013

AGENCY: Initiative

MEDIA CHANNEL: Online,TV

Del Monte::: Social Media Strategy Created a New Pet Food

Del Monte's social media initiative created a new breakfast treat for dogs.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- It's one thing to debate the potential power of social media marketing to influence product sales but quite another to watch a social media project actually create a popular new product. In his keynote address at last week's Interactive Advertising Bureau's Social Media Conference, Forrester Research's Josh Bernoff explained how Del Monte Foods did that very thing in just six weeks.

Whiskas::: Let's purr together

BRAND OWNER:Mars
CATEGORY:Pet Care
REGION:Hungary
DATE:Jan 2008 - Mar 2008


Whiskas is market leader in Hungary, but it was under threat from competitors including own-label products. It needed to push the emotional brand connection it had started to establish with its regional them of “let’s purr together”, especially in the more competitive dry food sector.

Whiskas’ target audience was women aged 35-55 who don’t just look for functional features in cat food, they look for the product that will most satisfy their feline friends.
A cat’s purr is the universal sign of feline satisfaction, so Whiskas strategy had to exploit it via audio and audio-visual channels.

Whiskas created an owner-purring contest which ran on Hungary’s most popular national morning radio show.

Participants applied by SMS to purr on air and prizes were given out to the best purring owners. In-store there were displays triggered by motion-sensors.

When someone passed the displays, the movement triggered the message: “Meoww, purr, irresistibly tasty Whiskas dry food with pocket kibbles”. This was supported by a microsite and a TV and radio campaign.

The in-store programme was particularly successful, delivering a 16% sales volume uplift for the Whiskas dry portfolio.

Pedigree::: Adoption Drive

BRAND OWNER:Mars
CATEGORY:Pet Care
REGION:Germany
DATE:Mar 2008 - Jul 2008

Pedigree was facing a huge problem, since the dog food market was being polarized between own label and premium brands. Pedigree was somewhere in the middle and did not have clear differentiating brand attributes.

The opportunity was to tell consumers, that Pedigree cares more about every single dog than any other manufacturer. In order to prove this, it created the Pedigree Adoption Drive and raised Awareness for dogs living in animal shelters.

The idea was to activate dog lovers to get them to become part of the Adoption Drive and create a dog rescue movement. Dog Lovers could become part of the movement, by donating money or by adopting a dog.
The first stage saw various rescue dogs profiled in all the big German newspapers, along with a telephone number for more information. Posters at gas stations on the freeway – notorious dumping grounds for unwanted pets – reminded people about the dogs’ plight. This was supported by TV ads.

The second step was to activate consumers to become a part of the movement, largely at point of sale. Images of local animal shelter dogs were displayed along with the message that with every purchase from Pedigree they support these dogs. People were driven to Pedigree.de in an online drive and there were many cases of editorial integration including reports of dogs who had found new homes. All of these homed dogs were shown on the Pedigree site.



The campaign achieved a short term sales growth of 8,6%.

Also the penetration of the brand increased about 4,8% for the first time in three years and remained on a higher level also after the campaign period.

Finally the target to donate €250k to animal shelters was smashed with a donation of €400k and the adoption rate increased about 20% during the period of the campaign.

Purina::: Be your cat

BRAND OWNER:Nestle
CATEGORY:Pet Care
REGION:USA
DATE:Mar 2008 - Aug 2008


To keep its brand portfolio fresh, Purina was about to introduce the new Taste Sensations line for its Friskies cat food.

Unfortunately for the brand, consumers often view the entire brand portfolio as a singular flavor option.

Purina needed to drive awareness for the new options and differentiate between the new varieties and Friskies current line-up.

Cat owners are “food polygamists” when it comes to cat food. They know that if they feed their cat too much of one flavor, they’ll stop eating altogether, keeping them from committing to one regular brand.

Research into cat behavior narrowed the cause of their picky eating habits to their instinct to “hunt” and the level of interest in their meal.
Purina partnered with online gaming channel Double Fusion to create the first-ever scavenger hunt online game. Gamers were challenged with “hunting” the Friskies Butterfly logo throughout a series of different games – just like their cat’s Seeking Circuit before mealtime! By clicking each logo they found, cat enthusiasts were engaged with multi-sensory sight and sound messaging about the four different varieties of Friskies cat food.

Each day, the person who found the most Friskies Butterflies throughout all games was awarded a code to download their choice of Double Fusion Game for free.

The games were surrounded with rich media banners showing cats doing their own seeking circuit – finding Friskies varieties at the end. Site users were also given the opportunity to play 10 of the site’s premium priced games for free for an hour their first time, courtesy of Friskies.

The program was supported by other cross-platform media such as TV, search and online branding.

The Taste Sensations brand experienced a 13.7% lift in unaided brand awareness. The click through rate on the Friskies Seeking Circuit banners surrounding the game was 6x the average for a Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) brand.