In New Zealand, shelter dogs are seen as second rate. Most traditional adoption advertising reinforces this perception by painting the dogs as victims. This further makes finding homes for these animals a real challenge. We needed to change this.

We needed to make these animals first choice. MINI, as a long standing, but little known, sponsor wanted to help.

Our strategy was to address the key barrier to adoptions: the perception that shelter dogs are inferior to store bought animals.

To do that, we showed how smart these dogs really are. We taught three SPCA dogs to do something a dog had never done before. Drive a car in a live event.

Over 8 weeks, we allowed people to learn about the training and interact with the dogs via Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

Then, the dogs drove live in front of the nation in the “Live Drive" event. This footage went viral along with the training.

Driving dogs content has been viewed by hundreds of millions worldwide.

In one week, the dogs got 12,000 Facebook fans, with engagement peaking at 245%. On Youtube alone, a single driving video was viewed over 9 million times in one week.

Every major news network picked up the online content, delivering $15m+ in coverage. An Earned media ROI of 1:30,000.

The response was incredible. Interest in adoptions increased 590%. All SPCA dogs were adopted. And increases in local adoption interest have been reported from as far away as the UK and the US – representing a truly global response.

People need to trust a dog with their family, so it was crucial we proved shelter dogs can be trained (and trained well) in the most compelling, convincing way possible.

The campaign was a genuine world first. We had to devise an 8 week “dog driving” training course; modify a car so a dog could drive it; and then film them behind the wheel actually driving.

By making heroes of the dogs we also subverted conventional adoption advertising which often paints the dogs as victims. And, we did this all in the funloving tone that is MINI – the sponsor.