THE PROJECT
Introducing Sit Stay Social - The first and only (Fake) pet store that exclusively sells dogs who are already famous on social media. Partnering with ALIVE Rescue Chicago, we created the April Fool's campaign to raise awareness on the important topic of animal rescue & adoption by capitalizing on the internet outrage machine. The objective was to stir the social media pot with a fake video to get people talking about animal adoption. The campaign goals:
THE CAMPAIGN DEVELOPMENT
1. LEGITAMIZE & GET SOCIAL
2. WEB DESIGN & LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION
In order to make it appear that Sit Stay Social was an actual company, we needed to start populating a Facebook page & Instagram account with content as to avoid drawing any suspicion. We asked people to use the hashtag #SitStaySocial on their dog pictures to be featured on our account. In the matter of weeks, we had over 100 followers & dog lovers using the #sitstaysocial hashtag, giving us just what we needed to appear legitimate.
In order to make it appear that Sit Stay Social was an actual company, we needed to start populating a Facebook page & Instagram account with content as to avoid drawing any suspicion. We asked people to use the hashtag #SitStaySocial on their dog pictures to be featured on our account. In the matter of weeks, we had over 100 followers & dog lovers using the #sitstaysocial hashtag, giving us just what we needed to appear legitimate.
3. RECRUIT INSIDERS & FIND OUR ADOPTION PARTNER
To boost the organic reach, we recruited the help of "insiders" who were in on the joke to help start the conversation with negative comments on shares. It was then time to find a pet adoption partner to serve as the final payoff/destination for when joke was revealed. Our partner, ALIVE Recuse, has been a safe haven for pets in since 2008 & was a perfect fit to be the final piece of the Sit Stay Social puzzle.
THE CAMPAIGN GOALS
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Raise Awareness for pet adoption & rescue
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Boost web traffic to an adoption agency partner's website
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Maybe even help to find some rescued animals a much deserved home
THE LAUNCH
We launched the targeted Facebook & Instagram advertisements on March 27th to start generating buzz & linking viewers to the site we created at sitstaysocial.com. We also scheduled shares from our network of insiders to kickoff the outrage. And rage they did. Over 100 comments on the video came in after 3 days & thankfully most of them were not in favor of the company values.
On April 2nd, we made the switch to start forwarding any clicks to the custom adoption landing page we created with ALIVE. It gave us an opportunity to let everyone in on the joke & showed them some real pets in the Chicago area who are looking for a home (Instagram accounts sold separately).
THE RESULTS
CLICKTHROUGHS: 1,036 TOTAL
DAILY TRAFFIC INCREASE: 64.2% INCREASE (ALIVE'S DAILY AVERAGE 163.5 - OUR OUTBOUND DAILY AVERAGE 105)
REACTIONS: 355 TOTAL - 243 LIKES 23 LOVE 28 HAHA 16 WOW 7 SAD 38 ANRGY
SHARES: 72 SHARES
VIDEO VIEWS: 15,708 TOTAL
REACH: 78,243 PEOPLE
THE BEHIND THE SCENES
The world of Instagram famous dogs is strangely bizarre, but at the same time totally amazing, & no one knows more about that world than our former assistant editor Julie Schultz. In case you don't run with Julie's pack on Instagram, @juliannedahuskies has over 60K followers & play supporting roles in the video. It's no doubt that they were the inspiration & reason behind the Sit Stay Social campaign... Thanks Julie
BEHIND THE SCENES
PLAY
THE
CREDITS
ADOPTION PARTNER: ALIVE RESCUE CHICAGO
PRODUCER, CAMPAIGN MANAGER, WEB DESIGN: MIKE TRIVISONNO
DIRECTOR, WRITER: GREGG JAFFE
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: GREGG JAFFE, MIKE TRIVISONNO
EDITOR, ANIMATOR: MIKE TRIVISONNO
STRATEGY & PR CONSULTANT: LEYLA ARSAN
LOGO ANIMATION: JACKIE AVELLAR
FAKE CEO & FOUNDER: JULIE SCHULTZ
DOGS: TUCKER, LEO, WINNIE, GORDON, FRANKIE, LOUIS, DR. DENNIS, THEO, LOONIE
EXTRAS: ALVA EGAN, ALYSON RAMSEY
ASSISTANT EDITOR: ALVA EGAN
BLOOPER REEL EDITOR: ALVA EGAN
FACEBOOK AD STRATEGY CONSULTANT: BRETT MITTAL
AUDIO MIX: BRYAN WARD
PA: ALVA EGAN
