Alternative title: When Did You Know?
Advertised brand: San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SF SPCA)
Advertising Agency: Most Likely To, San Francisco, U.S.A.
ECD/CW/Director: Trent Farr
CD/AD/Designer: Emil Wilson
Videographer/Editor: Brian Raphael
Media Director: Ryan Gelow
Dir. Client Services: Noël McKenzie-Johnson
Wildposting (tear-tabs): Alt Terrain
Wildposting (posters): Chuck Agency
Published: March 2018
Synopsis:
What makes your relationship unique? We’re collecting love stories about you and your pet. sfpca.org/stories (415) 360-0202
"Hand-made" looking creative is intended to increase both use of, and volunteers for, the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ (SF SPCA) services. The strategy is to drive and engage visitors at the new "The Companion Chronicles" microsite sfspca.org/stories (more time spent at the site, the SF SPCA has found, makes visitors more likely to participate in the organization's programs). The tactic, and the creative concept, is to borrow the look of "Lost Pet" tear-off sheets.
Which is what the four print executions appear at first to be. Rather than ask for help, though, with the whereabouts of someone else's runaway pup, they ask for your story about your love for your pet. Four slow-moving "hand-held" video :30s each show a tear-off sheet that has attracted at least one reader's attention.
The un-adlike appearance is meant to get readers' attention before their "ad filter" kicks in, letting the message come as a surprise. The handmade look fits the intimate "love stories" that the website asks for, and that most would rather share with a small-scale organization than with a large-. Additionally, the creative is human-centric, not yet another "cute animal" pitch. And it also solves the pesky problem of any perceived bias towards cats-not-dogs, or dogs-not-cats, or iguanas-not-even-mammals.