Premium and healthy Belgian pet food brand Edgard & Cooper wanted to raise awareness amongst their target Millennial, urbanite UK audience. The challenge was stiff competition from home-grown businesses that already had longstanding presence amongst the media. Not only this, but we needed to do it on a shoestring, compared to other big brands with lots of budget behind them.

We knew we needed to be creative, tapping into an emotive issue that touched the hearts of our audience, without incurring any costs. Our response was to piggy-back on the annual slew of stories covering Bonfire Night and its negative effect on canines – and launch the world’s first anti-anxiety hotline for dogs.

We issued an announcement of the hotline a few weeks in advance, coupled with advice from a University Professor and vet. Imagery to tug at the heart-strings followed, tapping into the love that the British have for their dogs (Picture Editors especially!).

On the night, the hotline went live, catering for anxious dogs and their owners across the UK. It sat online so no costs were incurred.

On the night, the hotline went live, catering for anxious dogs and their owners across the UK.

It did indeed, we secured coverage everywhere from Metro to Daily Express, Metro.co.uk, Daily Star, London Evening Standard and more.  This also set the scene for other ‘deeper-dive’ pieces as a result (and we were even contacted by USA TV).