When animals don’t have homes, they’re at risk of being killed. In fact, a dog or cat is killed in America’s shelters every 90 seconds just because they don’t have a safe place to call home. That’s why Best Friends teamed up with Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Studios’ SUPERMAN to encourage audiences to save lives and help make a lifesaving difference for animals waiting for homes of their own. Inspired by the bond between Superman and Krypto the Superdog, the multi-faceted campaign was designed to bring awareness to adoptable pets around the country and remove barriers to finding their best friend and “furever” home.
The specific goals of the campaign were to:
To bring the Superman x Best Friends Animal Society campaign to life, we began with a clear, meaningful vision: inspire animal lovers everywhere to be a hero by adopting - ensuring every dog and cat in the country has a safe place to call home. Our plan of action centered on leveraging Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Studios’ expansive network and platforms and Best Friends’ national reach to drive awareness, engagement, and adoptions. The multi-channel campaign distributed across all WBD and Best Friends’ platforms with a talent driven PSA, social and digital assets as well as partnership activations and integrations at events—reminding audiences that they don’t have to be an official superhero to do something lifesaving like adopting a shelter pet.
Key features/highlights included:
Challenges included coordinating across multiple cities and teams, aligning campaign timing with theatrical release, and ensuring consistent messaging across platforms. We overcame these through flexible cross-functional collaboration, agile planning, and a shared commitment to the cause.
The partnership showcased the power of combining cultural moments with lifesaving impact, resulting in significant visibility and real-world impact for pets in need. The campaign launched with a fee-waived adoption promotion (July 1 to 10), but after adoption interest surged by more than 500 percent, driven by fans and moviegoers, the offer was extended at Best Friends Lifesaving Centers nationwide through the entire month of July—removing financial barriers to pet adoption. This resulted in an increase in adoptions during the fee-waived period, and a campaign that turned fandom into lifesaving action.
Our campaign generated over 3B impressions, effectively bringing awareness to the adoption need and encouraging audiences to do good in the world. The broadcast PSA, digital and social resulted in nearly 500M impressions with an overall positive sentiment and engagement from talent such as Director, James Gunn and actress Maria Gabriela De Faria.
The campaign secured press pick-ups in national and local outlets including People, The Wrap, Extra TV, CNN Digital, Despirita América and more. Best Friends was fully embedded across campaign activations—from bringing adoptable pets to press events to facilitating a cast member’s pet adoption—which drove adoption awareness and created heartfelt, memorable moments throughout the film’s marketing campaign.
Best Friends Animal Society continues its mission to ensure every dog and cat has a safe place to call home. And with the help of fans, partners, and everyday heroes, this campaign proved that together, we can Save Them All.
