Adoption promotion created for SPCA Tampa Bay is "as good as any multimillion-dollar campaign"—but didn’t cost the shelter a penny

The reasons for pet relinquishment tend to become mind-numbing once you’ve heard them a few times. Through front-counter interviews with pet owners, accumulation of local data, and articles in national journals, sheltering professionals learn repeatedly how many animals are surrendered because of behavior, how many because of allergies, how many because of lifestyle changes, and how many because of their owners’ poorly conceived expectations.

After a while, it all melts into one big lump and eventually ends up in a study somewhere, complete with tables and graphs and pie charts that map out the collective frustrations of the animal welfare community. The numbers, while helpful to improving education and assistance programs for pets and their owners, do little to illuminate the plight of the individual animal: the cat left behind by a broken family or the lonely dog surrendered because the kids are bored with him.

And by extension, they do little to grab the attention of a public who responds far better to images, icons, and mantras than to flat statistics.

For years now, the humane community has used the reasons for relinquishment as a guide to developing resources that will help prevent that phenomenon—to great success in many cases. But what if those same reasons for relinquishment could serve as a touchstone of adoption promotion messages? What if they could be used to reach people who love animals but have never adopted one because they assume there’s something “wrong” with pets whose owners have given up on them?

It’s no easy task to meld positive messages with sad realities in a way that’s digestible to the public, but a shelter in Florida took the plunge and discovered it was worth the risk. Through an adoption campaign created by a St. Petersburg advertising agency, the SPCA Tampa Bay last year yanked the most common reasons for surrender right off its intake forms and plastered them onto posters graced by the beautiful faces of individual animals.

The messages read like hard-hitting ads from a child advocacy organization: “Her parents kicked her out for coming home pregnant.” “She lost her home in the divorce.” “He was thrown out of the house just for losing his coat.”

Explanations on the posters, like this one under the “divorce” headline, provide more insight into the problem: “Pets can find themselves homeless when their owners split up, no matter how loveable, obedient and good-natured they are. The lucky ones end up at the SPCA, where they have a chance to find someone new … maybe someone like you. Stop by and have a look. We have hundreds of sweet, orphaned animals with different stories just waiting to share their love. Again.”

Pro Adoption, Pro Bono

The posters are just one element of an overall adoption campaign that also includes postcards, ads in free entertainment weeklies, and a vinyl banner on the side of a building with a picture of a cat’s face and the beckoning line: “Here, human-human.”

Part of a push to promote adult animals, the campaign was the brainchild of an agency called SendTec, which responded to a request for proposals sent to 33 advertising firms in the Tampa Bay area.

“We offered them the opportunity to ‘compete for the privilege’ of providing the animals with a pro bono adoption campaign,” says SPCA Tampa Bay marketing and public relations director Nora Hawkins, adding with a laugh: “You never know until you ask.”

The idea to solicit free help was originally spawned by the SPCA board of directors’ marketing and public relations committee, composed of volunteers who are professionals in the advertising industry.

The committee sent a “creative brief” with the RFP that included an explanation of the target audience, a description of the key message the SPCA was trying to promote, and a mention of the reaction the shelter wanted to instill in members of the public: Wow, I never realized the SPCA did so much and that there was such a surplus of wonderful, adoptable pets—I’m going to go check it out!

The RFP also included questions designed to measure the seriousness of the agencies’ intentions: What’s your philosophy toward working with groups on a pro bono basis? What’s the background of the people who would be working on it? And why are you interested in doing a campaign for the SPCA?

“We wanted a feeling that there was going to be genuine enthusiasm devoted to the campaign and not just something that they’d let their very junior people do because they like puppies and kittens,” says Marcia Piacentino, chair of the marketing and public relations committee.

From the five agencies that responded, the committee narrowed the choice to three finalists. Before developing and presenting their campaign ideas, the finalists took extensive tours of the 10-acre facility. SendTec staff were particularly inquisitive, passionate, and accommodating. Even their response to the RFP had already revealed their excitement about the opportunity, says SPCA public relations coordinator Marissa Weeks. “They sent us pictures of themselves with their pets,” she says, “and each person on the committee actually wrote something about why they wanted to participate in this project.”

It was the first time SendTec had done a pro bono project, they told SPCA staff and committee members. “I don’t know what you expect of us or how long you expect this,” a top SendTec official said during the company’s formal presentation. “But basically we’re open to whatever you guys can help us with or whatever we can help you with.”

SPCA staff and volunteers were stunned when SendTec proceeded to present not one but eight different campaign concepts for promoting adult-animal adoptions.

The Appeal of Working for Free

Why would anyone in the for-profit world want to give something for nothing, especially something that takes so much time to create and execute?

The answer is simple, says Piacentino, herself a veteran advertising executive: cats, dogs, and the opportunity to be creative. Such risk-taking campaigns don’t come along very often, and the restrictions are usually tighter when a client is paying the bill. In fact, shelters in any community might be surprised by how many positive responses a simple letter to local ad agencies elicits, says Piacentino.

“There are a great number of people who appreciate this problem, either because they’ve adopted animals themselves or they maybe have worked on other pro bono campaigns,” she says. “Even the smaller agencies—sometimes there’s a two- or three-person agency—would love to have as part of their client list an SPCA or a humane society or a shelter. It allows them to exercise their creative muscles and show some work—when they’re pitching other paying clients—that really gets people smiling and nodding.”

In the Tampa Bay region, the public has responded to the campaign by smiling, nodding, and adopting more animals. In the months following the campaign’s launch, cat adoptions jumped 46 percent, compared to the same period the previous year; overall adoptions rose by 10 percent. Staff attribute the increases to both the campaign and the shelter’s extensive behavior programs.

“It has exceeded our wildest expectations. We’re delighted,” says Piacentino. “The quality of the strategic thinking and the creativity that SendTec applied was really remarkable. I’ve been in advertising much of my career, and this was in its own way as good as any multimillion-dollar campaign that I’ve seen.”

The posters and postcards appear in veterinary offices, groomers’ shops, petsitters’ offices, and other businesses that support the SPCA Tampa Bay, says Hawkins. The materials have proven so popular that they are due for a reprint. In April, volunteers from the marketing committee were slated to hit the streets and revisit participating businesses to replenish supplies. Armed with thank-you letters for each business owner, the volunteers planned to alert supporters of the increase in adoptions and “make them feel like they really are making a difference, because they are,” says Hawkins.