DARG is a pro-life, non-profit organisation that rescues, cares for and re-homes abused, neglected and abandoned cats and dogs. It is their vision to be a leading example of animal sheltering in South Africa. To achieve their mission, DARG relies solely on the public and businesses for their funding. The brief was to develop a Direct Mail piece targeted at Corporates for funding. It had to cut through the clutter and result in an emotional response from the recipient. It is only through gaining an emotional response that people are more willing to act, in this case, donate.

We wanted to engage adults via an interactive medium that was memorable and arresting. We felt a ‘pull-and-flip’ book for adults would achieve this. The story in our ‘pull-and-flip’ book is a parody on the popular “Spot” dog books for children. Except in ours, we demonstrate that not all “Spots” (dogs) have happy endings. We took popular dog activities like “running, fetching, jumping, playing dead etc.” and juxtaposed them with scenes of dog abuse. While the illustrations remain true to the genre, they help us to build sympathy for Spot as opposed to using shocking photographs of abuse.

Client was overjoyed with the end result and has been approaching Corporates to date, receiving positive reactions to the book. They anticipate reaching their target of funding for their new dog kennels this year.