There are approximately 3.3 million dogs entering shelters every year in the US, 1 in 6 of whom lose their lives to euthanasia. That’s a lot of love and loyalty going to waste in shelters.

Pedigree has been committed to the cause of dog adoption for the past few years. Not only is championing adoption the right thing to do, it’s a projected growth lever for the brand because it builds emotional relevance, brand favorability and is a key entry point for the category.

We wanted to figure out a way to help those dogs find loving homes, while keeping Pedigree top of mind with dog owners and people looking for a dog.

We created the Pedigree One True Loyalty Program, the only loyalty program in the world that gives YOU loyalty, in dog form.

How it works is simple: you buy 2 bags of Pedigree, and we give you a dog, and all its loyalty. More specifically, we’ll cover the cost of adopting a dog from a shelter.

These days we’re overrun by corporate “loyalty programs” -- carefully calibrated programs that use small incentives to make YOU more loyal to a company or brand. As a result, the notion of “loyalty” has gotten a bit watered down.

We thought it might be nice to take a page from our canine friends and make loyalty about, well, being loyal. So our loyalty program is the first to give the customers loyalty instead of asking it of them.

Best of all, that loyalty comes in the form of a shelter dog.

We went in with the belief that promoting adoption would drive Pedigree’s business. But we would never be successful if we only spoke to people in the market for a dog, as that audience is simply not big enough.

Therefore, our key audience was dog owners - who care about dogs and are often very passionate about animal adoption. We wanted to show them how important this issue was to us, so we could become more relevant to them and inspire a meaningful connection at shelf.

The second audience was people looking for a dog. They may be considering adoption, or not. We wanted to demonstrate all the loyalty an adopted pet could bring and help them choose adoption by making it easier to pay for it. We hoped that incentivizing these new dog owners would build brand preference for Pedigree early on, and help dogs find loving homes.

How the Pedigree One True Loyalty program worked was simple: buy 2 bags of Pedigree, we pay for your dog’s adoption.

To promote this first-of-its-kind program, we ran OLV and social content highlighting how much better a dog’s loyalty is than “points” or “miles.” We also ran side-by-side OOH playfully comparing our program to other types of loyalty programs in key regions where dogs desperately need to be adopted. We even challenged a loyalty program expert on Twitter to find a better deal (he agreed he couldn’t). All communications funneled consumers to a landing page, which linked to adoptable dogs nearby, and facilitated adoption fee redemption.

The campaign and offer were live for 3 months in the US. As a result, we not only redefined the loyalty program, we helped shelter dogs find much needed homes.

Even though the Pedigree One True Loyalty Program offered to give customers loyalty instead of demanding it from them, we still saw +2.7% uptick in sales amongst people who saw our advertising, and a +10% sales increase at Walmart alone. The campaign delivered 187MM media impressions and drove a 9.8% increase in Pedigree’s association with adoption. Better still, we saw a 57% increase in shelter visits in areas where our campaign ran, and a 53% uplift in adoption searches amongst people who saw our ads. We also helped 614 dogs find loving, new homes, with Pedigree reimbursing over $100,000 to those new pet parents to cover the costs of their adoptions.

In 2015, PEDIGREE® launched a new brand platform, “Feed the good,” about the good dogs bring to our lives. A key component of this platform is our flagship social responsibility commitment to the cause of dog adoption because the more dogs we get into people’s lives, the more “good” we can feed for dogs and for people. Not only is championing adoption the right thing to do, adoption is also a projected growth lever for the brand because it builds emotional relevance, is an entry point for the category and a passion point for our future growth audience.

We wanted to demonstrate Pedigree’s commitment to ending dog homelessness while actually providing some real good for Pedigree customers. As a result, a new kind of loyalty program was born.