Despite large retail partners and a passionate following, Halo premium pet food was largely unknown. What defines the brand is a commitment to the idea that nutritious food can transform the well-being of pets—which is why this purpose-driven brand donates 1.5 million meals to shelters annually to help shelter pets become healthier and more adoptable.
Initially, Halo asked for a TV spot to raise brand awareness and elevate perception to align with distribution partners like Whole Foods and boutique shops. But we saw an opportunity to activate this very social, passionate pet parent audience into brand ambassadors and amplify Halo's purpose.
Our message was simple: Share a photo of your pet with #HaloFeeditForward, and Halo will donate a meal to a shelter on your behalf.
We activated this social campaign through TV, print, Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, and followed with a website redesign.
Challenges included minimal production budget (and we created the spot pro-bono), a commitment to using only rescue dogs in the spot, and training these dogs to "share" food. The spot follows a bowl of Halo from adopted dog to shelter dog. It depicts the adopted dog embodying the Halo brand by "feeding it forward" to a shelter animal in need of nutrition and a forever home. We worked with a local production company and located a shelter who let us shoot there in exchange for our sharing their name and making a donation of food and money to their organization. We also shot the purple bowl assets in-house, creating an iconic brand symbol.
It was the first campaign inviting owners and their pets to do good together—and the impact was immediate. With a 40% YOY sales volume increase in initial test markets, 131 million impressions, including posts from shelters, pet bloggers, pet media/journalists, and celebrities Ellen DeGeneres and Trisha Yearwood. Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook have 13,000 picture posts combined.
The origin of our relationship with Halo was through a professional relationship with a key brand partner: the Shelter Me series on PBS. The producer of "Shelter Me" and Halo originally asked us to do their first TV spot to aid awareness. We agreed to do the spot pro-bono but shape a holistic approach to the ask.
Given Halo's position as a growing—but still small—challenger brand in its category, our marketing strategists launched the creative team with a brief that emphasized the brand's purpose and cited the audience social behaviors that could help amplify the story. The organizing idea that sparked the campaign: Change a Life.
In addition to Shelter Me, we facilitated campaign tie-ins through event marketing channels and media relations with partner agencies, and coached brand community managers on ways to optimize one on engagement with fans and followers. We also recommended tie-ins to company co-owner Ellen DeGeneres (as VO and twitter participant) who helped propel the campaign.
This campaign is one born out of our true passion not just for animals, but for purpose driven marketing and effective storytelling across channels.
