Every year in France, more than a million dogs don’t get their annual visit to the veterinarian, because their owners assume there is nothing wrong with their four-legged friend. As a part of their survival tactics, dogs don’t show signs of their disease, so by the time those signs become symptoms, it’s sometimes too late to provide treatment. According to studies, 59% of animals have a condition that could be improved with proper nutritional therapy. If analysis were run more often, sometimes just adapting their diet would be enough to fix the problem of almost 600 000 dogs before it becomes serious.

As an advocate for animal health, Purina wanted to come up with a way for the dogs to be tested early, by making it as easy as a walk in the park.

It’s sometimes necessary to remind dog’s owners to regularly check their pets’ health. To make this medical necessity a part of their regular habit we turned dogs’ natural behavior, peeing on poles, into a seamless health test.

Introducing Purina Street-Vet, the first digital billboard which collects and analyses dogs urine, transforming their daily “business“ into a routine check-up.

First, the dog pees on the pole, then the urine is tested, and the analysis is displayed. If a disease is detected, Purina Street-Vet suggests a specific product from the Purina ProPlan line, clinically designed to prevent the development of disease. Dog owners can also download the result and bring it to the vet.

According to studies, 59% of animals have a condition that could be improved with proper nutritional therapy. So with over a million dogs not getting their regular health tests, 600 000 dogs could be missing out on an opportunity for early diagnosis before it becomes serious. Yet a single drop of urine would suffice to check on dogs health, we just needed to come up with a way to collect it outside of a vet clinic.

59% of dog owners walk their dogs on a regular basis, so we thought this would be the best way to reach them, by fitting into their regular routine. Out-of-home ads felt like the most natural fit since they already existed in the that environment. In order to reach a high concentration of dogs we placed the collection sites in areas with high foot-traffic near dog parks.

Born from 2 years of development with engineering institute, Yncrea, and veterinary clinic, VetParis7, Purina Street-Vet is an enhanced digital billboard that detects 4 health problems from a single drop of urine. If potential signs of diabetes (glucose > 2mmol/L), kidney failure (protein level > 0.12-0.15 g/l), urinary infection (leukocytes > 10 - 15 WBC/mm3), or dietary imbalance (pH < 5.0 or > 9.0) are discovered, Purina Street-Vet suggests a Purina ProPlan product and offers owners the opportunity to download the result and bring it to the vet. To make it available to the public, we identified 10 places around Paris where people walk their dogs and placed the billboard there for a month.

Watch the tech-video in the annex for more information.

Street after street, Purina Street-Vet has reminded dog owners in France about the importance of regular health checks for their pets, performing over 2,500, which revealed 1,024 health issues: alimentary imbalance (596), urinary infection (367), diabetes (42), and kidney failure (19).

Dog owners were convinced they needed to visit the vet more regularly at a rate of 74%, and 94% changed their attitude about the importance of their dogs nutrition. 77% said Street-Vet improved the way they thought about Purina as a brand, and 83% increased their intent to purchase Purina products. (1)

Conversation and news coverage spread across France, and in many other countries. The industry has reacted with requests from vendors and other markets (Canada, Japan, Brazil). Purina is now exploring ways to scale production and reduce the costs so this technology can travel around the world.

(1) Source: SurveyMonkey Audience, quantitative study on 200 dog owners