Objectives

Zappos and partners wanted to provide something special to our customers that money could not buy - the love that comes with rescuing a pet from a shelter. From Nov. 25, 2016 to Nov. 28, 2016 (Black Friday to Cyber Monday), Zappos sponsored free dog and cat adoptions at Best Friends Animal Society and over 120 of their No More Homeless Pets partner locations nationwide with the goal of finding homes for 9,000 pets through Black Friday weekend, a 43 percent increase to the 6,285 pets adopted the previous year.

Strategy and Execution

In addition to partnering with Best Friends Animal Society to launch the campaign, Zappos engaged with leading social Pet Influencers with a combined 17.7M+ followers. Outside of social media partner integrations, Zappos teamed up with popular fashion blog Man Repeller to create an ownable editorial story within their "It's Kind of a Funny Story" section highlighting how the authors met their shelter pets.

Zappos created and owned content over a two week time period across all Zappos social channels including, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. Zappos shared the campaign widely internally, prompting over 1,600 Zappos employees to reach out to their favorite celebrities/brands/CeWEBrities/etc., asking them to "Retweet" the Pawlidayz content. Employees were then given a range of prizes for the retweets they collected based on follower count and a number of other actions. Not only did this internal involvement positively impact company culture but it also assisted greatly with the grassroots marketing success of the campaign.

Outside of employee and user generated social content, Zappos teamed up with celebrity influencers Cesar Millan and Wynonna Judd to produce live streaming content resulting in 36 total produced videos targeting different segments of pet owners. A combined 500 hours of production went into building the content and strategy for the campaign.

Results

A total of 11,023 pets were adopted over the length of the campaign (surpassing our goal of 9,000) with over 225M total impressions across multiple social platforms including Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. In addition to pets adopted and hundreds of social impressions achieved, the campaign received over 50 pieces of unique media coverage further spreading the word of the campaign.

Last but not least, the boost in positive customer sentiment achieved through the campaign was substantial, further validating the success of Pawlidayz for our brand. We received hundreds of glowing reviews. Below are just a few:

• "I have never shopped at Zappos, but you have earned a new customer. I have been watching the timeline for the local Humane Society's FB page and they have been posting all the #Zappos adoptions. What an awesome way to give back."
• "This news is the best that I've heard all year. Zappos, how do you do it?! Thank you Tony and the entire Zappos' team!"