Share for Dogs
PEDIGREE®
Issue 31 | June 2014
Agency
Colenso BBDO
Creative Team
Creative Chairman Nick Worthington Creative Director Levi Slavin Senior Writer Matt Lawson Copywriter Ben Polkinghorne Art Director Scott Kelly
Production Team
Production Company Finch Director Nick Ball Animal Wranglers Animal House
Other Credits
Business Director Helen Fitzsimons Senior Social & Digital Strategist Neville Doyle Agency Executive Producer Paul Courtney Agency Producer Natasha Gill Senior Planner Tamsin McDonnell
Date
April 2014
Background
There was a growing trend online of 'slacktivism'. This was passive engagement online when people thought they were doing their bit for a good cause simply by sharing a link, liking a post or signing an online petition. What most charities most needed was money.
In considering a new campaign for The PEDIGREE® Adoption Drive, the question was, could 'slacktivism' actually be turned to advantage?
Idea
'Share for Dogs' connected peoples' desires to feel they were supporting worthy causes whilst leveraging their propensity for watching and sharing cute puppy videos.
It was a video which set out to be the cutest, most adorable puppy video of all time, which people would want to share. The film explained that simply by watching, they were raising money for dogs in need. This was because the idea leveraged YouTube's revenue model, whereby a portion of the profit generated from the pre-roll advertising on each video was shared with the owner of the video.
All the revenue the video generated went to feeding, treating and finding homes for dogs.
Results
Unlike nearly all 'viral' brand videos on YouTube, this was launched with a $0 seeding budget. Even so, in its first week it was shared by hundreds of thousands of people across Twitter and Facebook and was featured on Mashable, Huffington Post, Upworthy and Time, among other sites. Celebrities such as Zooey Deschanel, Jane Lynch, Pete Cashmore and Pam Grier all shared the video via their personal social media accounts.
Total views to date (and counting): 600,000
Our Thoughts
The agency has dubbed this new revenue- raising mechanic Sharity. Raising funds by getting people to watch and share a video. It’s certainly an innovative use of the YouTube pay-per-view system, which has already helped a number of content creators like Zoella or Danisnotonfire in the UK become rich. In 2014, it is estimated that YouTube will attract some £4 billion in advertising revenue. So, nice. But hoping for real income from just one video is a bit hopeful. What would be impressive is if this was just the first of dozens of cute puppy films. Together they could raise the sort of money one film on its own probably can’t.