San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SF SPCA): wild postings on site

For the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SF SPCA), advertising agency Most Likely To, San Francisco, aligned "hand-made" looking creative to a tiny, $20K media budget (roughly 50/50 digital and non-) for an unconventional social campaign meant to pluck pet lovers' heartstrings.

The goal is to increase both use of, and volunteers for, the SF SPCA's 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.

Four slow-moving "hand-held" video :30s each show a tear-off sheet that has attracted at least one reader's attention. The sheet appears at first to be a "Lost Pet" notice. Instead, though, it asks for your love story about your pet. Besides online videos, the ads run as large-format wildpostingss, and, in fact, as actual 8.5" x 11" tear-offs.

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.