SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, MINI / THE DRIVING DOGS
10 December 2012
Animal charity partners with car brand to teach an old dog new tricks
- Media Type
- Online
- Viral
- Web Film
- Product Category
- Charities
- Country
- New Zealand
- Source
- News
- Tags
- automotive
- pet care
- charity
- viral
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) has launched a campaign in New Zealand encouraging consumers to adopt a dog. In an effort to overcome misconceptions that rescue dogs can't be trained, the SPCA is attempting to teach three dogs to drive.
A series of online videos, hosted on a Facebook app, follows the story of Porter, Monty and Ginny as they learn to drive. Mark Vette - a trainer renowned for working with animals on movie sets - has been drafted in to lead the process.
In order to put this training to the test, MINI - via agency Draft FCB, Auckland - has supplied a MINI Countryman for the dogs to drive. The car has been adjusted to help the animals reach the accelerator and brake, as shown by a video on the Facebook app.
On Monday 10 December, the three dogs drove the cars live on TV3's Campbell Live.
SPCA Auckland CEO Christine Kalin said: 'The dogs have achieved amazing things in eight short weeks of training, which really shows with the right environment just how much potential all dogs from the SPCA have as family pets.'
Contagious Insight
As a means of raising awareness of the SPCA, this campaign seems to hit the nail on the head. The videos are fun, and are sure to be picked up by both the dog loving population of New Zealand, and the wider, global canine community. The campaign has featured on Campbell Live - one of the country's flagship current affairs programmes.
We wonder, though, if the stunt will do enough to turn this awareness into adoptions. Porter, Monty and Ginny are likely to be quickly re-homed as a result of their new-found fame, but will this be the case for the other dogs in the care of the SPCA? Could the charity, for example, have run a build-up campaign enabling the public to vote for their top three dogs, from a pool of many animals? This would have profiled more dogs than the lucky three, and given the public an opportunity to check out more pets in need of a good home.
This story originally appeared on Contagious Feed. Contagious Feed is our bespoke trends, inspiration, insight and analysis service, providing daily innovative marketing intelligence across a comprehensive range of sectors to brands and agencies across the world. For more information about Contagious Feed contact sales@contagiousmagazine.com
A series of online videos, hosted on a Facebook app, follows the story of Porter, Monty and Ginny as they learn to drive. Mark Vette - a trainer renowned for working with animals on movie sets - has been drafted in to lead the process.
In order to put this training to the test, MINI - via agency Draft FCB, Auckland - has supplied a MINI Countryman for the dogs to drive. The car has been adjusted to help the animals reach the accelerator and brake, as shown by a video on the Facebook app.
On Monday 10 December, the three dogs drove the cars live on TV3's Campbell Live.
SPCA Auckland CEO Christine Kalin said: 'The dogs have achieved amazing things in eight short weeks of training, which really shows with the right environment just how much potential all dogs from the SPCA have as family pets.'
Contagious Insight
As a means of raising awareness of the SPCA, this campaign seems to hit the nail on the head. The videos are fun, and are sure to be picked up by both the dog loving population of New Zealand, and the wider, global canine community. The campaign has featured on Campbell Live - one of the country's flagship current affairs programmes.
We wonder, though, if the stunt will do enough to turn this awareness into adoptions. Porter, Monty and Ginny are likely to be quickly re-homed as a result of their new-found fame, but will this be the case for the other dogs in the care of the SPCA? Could the charity, for example, have run a build-up campaign enabling the public to vote for their top three dogs, from a pool of many animals? This would have profiled more dogs than the lucky three, and given the public an opportunity to check out more pets in need of a good home.
This story originally appeared on Contagious Feed. Contagious Feed is our bespoke trends, inspiration, insight and analysis service, providing daily innovative marketing intelligence across a comprehensive range of sectors to brands and agencies across the world. For more information about Contagious Feed contact sales@contagiousmagazine.com
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