The goal of this social media campaign was to help the older, more tenured shelter dogs, in St.Hubert's Animal Welfare Center find homes, through the use of social media and MAGIC TRICKS!
The idea was simple, perform magic tricks for dogs on camera and capture their unique reaction to a treat vanishing! Each dog would show off their personality in a way that typical play time may not showcase! As the treat would vanish it would leave each dog reacting in a new fun way and hopefully people would connect with the silly reactions and consider taking home some of these furry friends!
(Please note this project was fully pro bono. The true goal was to help some older dogs get seen and find homes! )
The project was produced in a way that would maximize organic visability! It was shot to be edited both horizontal and veritcle so that we could upload the vdeo to every platofrm without restrictions!
Using Reddit and Imgur as a vericle has always been an underground tactic as many large repost accounts will reupload top connent from these platforms and repurpose it on other socials like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc.
This turned out to be a smart play, as the videos took off on Reddit and Imgur generating over 3 million views on those platforms and resulted in lots of large-following repost accounts picking it up organically!
EVERY. DOG. WAS. ADOPTED!
St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center Director of Comunications Diane Ashton said "most of the dogs in those videos got adopted right away and we are super thankful to John for making them disapear from the shelter!" Since this quote every dog in the video has found a home!
This adorable dog reaction video took off on Imgur and Reddit gaining over 3 million views! Which then spiraled into a media frenzy. With the success of these videos, repost accounts on instagram started posting the video like wildfire!
Then, earned media started covering the video, securing spots in publications like upworthy, The Dodo, and iHeart Radio. This resulted in live interviews on Inside Edition and local News12 NJ!
Finishing with a huge highlight of landing a dream interview spot on Good Morning America's What You Need to Know! Where both John Stessel and Diane Ashton were interviewed about the project and showcased their partnership alongside the impact that clever social media can make to help dogs in need get exposure to millions of Americans!
BUT THE REAL MAGIC IS THAT EVERY DOG IN THIS VIDEO WAS ADOPTED!
