Identify influencers whose fans have a higher likelihood of having a high affinity for the themes of Clifford the Big Red Dog, and leverage that affinity to generate interest in the movie’s release.
With such a strong connection to the love of animals in general and pets in particular, we knew that dog lovers would be likely to fall in love with Clifford. Knowing that we were relying on organic posts, our content should amplify and center around the dogfluencers themselves, in order to align naturally with their interests.
This way our creative leaves both the dogfluencers as well as their fans with a positive sentiment towards the collaboration. We were not trying to teach these dogs new tricks, instead inviting them into the imaginative world of Clifford. We decided our organic pieces should feature footage of the dogfluncer and Clifford interacting.
In order to combine our fictional world with the real glamor and glitz of four-legged influencing, we knew we wanted to use the excellent toolkit animations that we had access to. But with these pre-rendered videos came some restrictions as far as camera angles and cropping. We really wanted Clifford's size and playful side to shine through each piece.
With these things in mind, we could define the following strategic pillars.
Involve the dogfluencers in the creative process to make sure their personalities shined through
To get the most out of the toolkit, educate the dogfluencers and help them provide us with the right content
Not treat our superstars as animals, instead letting them act out with their new scene “paw-tner”
As our dogfluencers started posting our content, the fans’ reactions were almost exclusively positive, across all types of engagements. They were able to connect the content with a movie release, thus generating the interest we sought. Seeing a giant red dog in the real world certainly helped.
At its release, Clifford had the best opening for a family movie during the pandemic, with a strong $22M domestic opening weekend (2nd after Marvel Eternals) and close to $100M box office worldwide, it was a success, especially given that the movie was released simultaneously in theaters and on Paramount+.
We are confident that his newfound fur-friends helped Clifford bark his way to success, and into the hearts of a new generation.
