The aim of the second module is to develop an advertising campaign (or advised by the brief) selected from D&AD/YCN Student Awards briefs 2018. Aims may vary depending on your chosen brief, however, the fundamental aim is to answer the brief and to communicate a specified target market.
The YCN brief I chose to do is the Dogs Trust project to “Create a campaign that makes ‘rescue dogs’ the most desirable breed of dog in Britain.” I chose this brief as I think it is an important issue and one that I feel needs to be made more aware.
Research
Background
“Dogs Trust is the UK’s largest dog welfare and Rehoming charity. Every year we care for around 16,000 dogs at our 20 rehoming centres nationwide. Our mission is to bring about the day when all dogs can enjoy a happy life, free from the threat of unnecessary destruction, and a huge part of this is our promise to ‘never put down a healthy dog’. This means that once a dog is in our care, he or she will be safe, cared for and loved for the rest of their days; they will have anything they need, emotionally as well as physically, for as long as they need it.
Whilst we care for all the dogs in our Centres like they are our own, we truly believe that the best place for a dog is in a forever home. A home is the best place for a dog because dogs love a family unit, and our goal is to give all dogs a second chance at happiness with a special new owner who’s right for them. We need to find new homes for 13,000 abandoned dogs each year.
For every dog we rehome we have space to rescue another one, but the length of stay a dog has with us is increasing, and as a result, we can help fewer dogs. This brief is focused on helping us getting more Dogs Trust rescue dogs into their forever homes.” – YNC Dogs Trust Brief
The Creative Challenge
“Why is the length of time a dog stays with us increasing? The cause is: buying behaviour is changing. With the ever-changing digital world, it has never been easier to get a dog. You can go online and search by dog breed, age, colour, location etc and have your ‘perfect’ dog ready to collect in a matter of minutes. People think they know what dog they want and can get it so easily online that they forget about the rescue dogs needing a second chance, who just want someone to love, and who’ll love them.
Alongside this change in digital behaviour, there is also a common misconception that rescue dogs are ‘broken’ or have ‘issues’ when more often than not a dog will be brought into our centres due to an owner’s change of circumstances. The most common reasons given when handing over a dog to us are ‘work commitments’,’ family crisis’, ‘new baby’ and ‘owner ill health’. A dog may be at a rehoming centre for lots of different reasons but they are all the same in two ways; their circumstances weren’t their fault, and regardless of their past they have nothing but love in their hearts waiting to give their new owner.
We know Britain loves dogs! 1 in 4 households in the UK own a dog as a pet and 800,000 dogs will be bought this year. We also know not everyone can rescue a dog, but our wish is that everyone looking to get a dog tries to rehome first before buying one. Every day we have up to 1,500 wonderful dogs of all shapes and sizes waiting at our 20 rehoming centres for their hero to turn up and change their lives forever.
If the dog-buying behaviour is changing, and the digital world we live in means people want what is fashionable, then we need to influence this buying behaviour in the rescue dog’s favour! There has been a 368% rise in the popularity of French Bulldogs in the past ve years alone, and by the end of 2018, this breed will overtake Labradors as the UK’s most popular dog (the first time the Labrador has been knocked o the top spot in 27 years). We want to make rescue dogs the next most desirable breed in Britain.
Rehoming a dog from Dogs Trust may not change the world, but for that one dog their world will change forever, and we want your ideas to help us and more of these special dogs’ new homes!
Come up with an idea that will make the Great British dog lover change their perception of rescuing a dog, and want to rehome a rescue dog from Dogs Trust instead of buying a dog online. Your creative idea will inspire people to visit the Rehoming pages of our website — or even better — visit one of our rehoming centres and ultimately help us and more rescue dogs their forever homes! Your idea can be anything from a clever press and to an experiential concept, or an idea for a full-blown integrated campaign. Whatever you come up with it should feel positive, upbeat and non-judgmental, in line with our brand guidelines.” – YNC Dogs Trust Brief
The target audience for this brief is for the “Great British dog lover” who are considering getting a dog or someone who is also contemplating getting a dog in the future when they have the right circumstances. The campaign aims to stop people on their dog- buying tracks and change their direction to look at dog adoption instead.
Creative considerations
“Dogs Trust is upbeat, passionate, warm and — most of all – positive! In everything we do and say we come from a positive angle; we are NOT institutional, judgmental or shocking. Our tone of voice is hugely important as it reflects what we are about as an organisation, and really sets us apart from other animal welfare charities.
Any ideas you come up with must not portray Dogs Trust as a bad place for a dog to be. We will care for a dog for the rest of their days like they are our own if needed, but a forever home is just that one step better. Dogs in our care should never be described as “unwanted”, “unloved” or ‘’desperate’’ as this isn’t the case.” – YNC Dogs Trust Brief
The creative considerations play a big part in how my campaign will look at my campaign must not show Dogs Trust in a negative or shocking way. This completely changes how I can react to the brief as other charity campaigns such as RSPCA use shocking and distressing campaigns to appeal to an audience through negative pathos while Dogs Trust try so show healthy, non-neglected dogs to appeal more to people to re-home dogs and break the stigma that rescue dogs are “damaged” or “broken”.
Aristotle Rhetoric
Aristotle’s Rhetoric is an ancient Greek treatise (a written work dealing formally and systematically with a subject) on the art of persuasion, dating from the 4th century BC. This Rhetoric is an important part of how we can make advertising more persuading and how to appeal to someone.
This is something important that I have learnt in lectures that will make my campaign more successful if I include a combination of either ethos, pathos or logos to appeal to my audience.
Ideas & Development
I made a mind map of my campaign ideas which focus on different aspects of getting peoples attention and promoting rescue dogs. I looked at ideas relating to the overall social image of Dogs Trust which included making their photos of the dogs available for rehoming to look more appealing and stylised. I also liked at ways they could promote themselves in a more popular and current way such as street art, trends, hashtags etc…
I furthermore look at digital/ physical ways to would get people attention such as developing an app or game that people could play but would also relay a message like Dumb Ways to Die Australian public service announcement campaign. As well as creating a Buzzfeed like quiz, tinder like adoption match up and partnerships with other companies like the recent Dogs Trust and Radley’s collaboration.
Lastly I looked at campaign ideas that would encourage people to physical go and spent time at dogs Trust by looking at ideas like plays days where people could walk or just play with the dogs in their local centre, pop up shelters to create more availability for people to visit Dogs Trust is they don’t live close to one of their 20 Centres or adoption days to encourage people to visit a centre and get all the information they need to be able to meet and adopted a dog.
I decided I wanted to develop the idea of creating a campaign that shows the photos of the dogs they have in a more current and stylised way as other dogs are shown on social media like Facebook and Instagram as I believe social media has played a big part in how dog trends are occurring and why people are specifically buying only certain breeds of dogs.
We can see this is the case in this figure from Dogs Trust;
“If the dog-buying behaviour is changing, and the digital world we live in means people want what is fashionable, then we need to influence this buying behaviour in the rescue dog’s favour! There has been a 368% rise in the popularity of French Bulldogs in the past ve years alone, and by the end of 2018, this breed will overtake Labradors as the UK’s most popular dog (the first time the Labrador has been knocked o the top spot in 27 years). We want to make rescue dogs the next most desirable breed in Britain.”
Dogs like the French Bulldog have been popping up all over social media showing them in a cute and human-like way making them more appealing to people as they are seen as behaved, affectionate, “postable”dogs compared to larger dogs such as Rockweilers which are shown as more aggressive even though this is not always the case.
Examples of photos of dogs that can be found on Instagram
I Also wanted to create a hashtag/ trending tag to raise awareness of rescue dogs and the make people aware that length of time dogs are in shelters is increasing because of the changing buying behaviour.
As well as a making the photos Dogs Trust uploads of its dogs more stylised like the ones above and this idea of a trend which are both digital, I want to add a physical print aspect that would see when out and about. This would raise awareness as well as be something that could be snapped on a camera and uploaded online with the tag\ hashtag to raise awareness online but as well as raise awareness offline and therefore reach people that are also less socially inclined. I consider doing something physical by making stickers which a recognisable graphics and the tagline or by temporary spray paint to attract peoples attention.
Further Idea Development
After talking with my lecture Mark we discussed further how I could create a campaign that shows the photos of the dogs they have in a more current and stylised way as other dogs are shown on social media like Facebook and Instagram. We talking about also incorporating the idea I other current social media trends like Tinder where my campaign could match dogs that need rehoming with people who want a dog in the same way a person looks for a partner. He then showed my advertising by the French fashion retailer The Kooples. The Kooples have simple but effective adverts showing couples in their clothing but making it personal by adding the couples names and how long they have been together. This adds pathos be telling a story and adding emotion to the campaign. I really like this simple way to tell a story in a really short and effective way. This made me develop my idea of stylised photos by changing the idea in a way that I could get people to send me or post pictures of themselves with their rescue dogs and tell me how long they have had their dog and any personality trades or things that they partially do together to create a stronger sense of emotion.
I want to reach about to as many people as possible to send pictures of their rescue dogs to create a bigger awareness and show the diversity of people and their dogs, as well as hopefully show that people have had their dogs for a long time reinforcing the idea that rescue dogs find forever homes. I would like to get a range of people from a range of backgrounds to show that it is simply about just a person and their best friend (the dog). I would like to include celebrities with rescue dogs is this and try to reach as a contact them to see if I would be able to get photos of them and their dogs, promotion to use existing photos on google or just information about how long they have had their dog.
We also discussed the idea of putting physical prints into the world and slightly developed the idea that I could also use dogs printed on newsprint and pasted on to walls around the city.
Further Idea Development
I am beginning to think more about how my ideas will overall form a full campaign. I have considered making an advertisement that will include photos of people with their rescue dogs that could be a way of circulating the images together, this would also allow for paper publications such as poster and billboards. I really like the advert Puppy Love which follows the idea of matching people with dogs in a similar way to tinder, I would like to look at a way of combing an advert like this with something similar to the way Kooples advertise.
Before I can go any further with the design and development of my campaign I decided that I needed to start getting people to send me pictures of their rescue dogs so I have material to use in my campaign.
This is the message I wrote to email to people to ask for help with my campaign:
Hello, My name is Natalie Rose and I am a Graphic Design Student from Sheffield in the UK.
I am currently working on an advertising brief to create a campaign for the UK charity ‘Dogs Trust’ (Registered Charity Numbers: 227523 & SC037843) to promote people to adopt rescue dogs instead of private buying as well as to raise awareness that the length of time a dog stays with Dogs Trust is increasing because buying behaviour is changing.
I would be so grateful if you would help me with my campaign and send me a picture of yourself with your rescue dog(s) or let me know if it would be okay to use photographs available online of you and your rescue dog(s). Also if you would be willing to give me some background information about how long you have had you rescue dog(s) and any reason you can give to encourage people to adopt.
None of your content will be used outside of my campaign which is purely for my college module and the YCN design award. Also if you have any friends or family that would be willing to help me out and contribute that would be greatly appreciated.
If you are willing to contribute to my work or have any further questions please free more than free to contact me by any of the following:
Moblie: (+44) 07889861721
email: natalieharveyr@hotmail.com
Instagram: @natlee_rose
Twitter: @Natleepea
Deadline Week Beginning the 19th of February 2018
I received 6 responses from putting out my request for pictures of peoples rescue dogs. The pictures I received were of a pretty poor quality which has made me rethink going down this root of development as it changes the tone and look of the campaign and I don’t feel it does it in a positive away. I received really great insight and stories from people along with the pictures which I would still like to somehow incorporate. It turned out to be almost impossible to contact celebrities as well so that limited the diversity and impacted I would have liked.
With the pictures, I did receive I created thumbnails of how they may look in a social media like app which would promote the campaign.
Further Idea Development
For a few weeks, I wasn’t sure which idea to carry on developing and how I would make a simple but effective campaign. After the outcome of requesting people to send me pictures of their rescue dogs did not go as well as I had hoped I wanted to back to the idea of going to a Dogs Trust centre and taking photos of the dogs there in a photoshop like manner to get good quality photographs of the dogs. I have arranged to go the Dogs Trust centre in Leeds to discuss the possibility of taking photographs of their dogs. I will travel to Leeds on the 5th of February 2018 to meet with media assistant Kevin Johnson to discuss the possibilities.
If it is possible to conduct a Photoshoot with some of the dogs at the Leeds Rehoming centre I was still unsure of what I would do with the picture again to make them into a campaign. I looked more closely at what the word “desirable” really means and can be broken down too in order to get a better idea of how this campaign can show rescue dogs in a desirable way. I also looked at what are the currently most desirable dogs to get a better idea of what the British public really like and to see if there is any link or pattern to their choices.
Through this research, I determined that I high fashion brands come to mind when looking at the word “desirable” for example if you buy a pair of £500 Christian Louboutin shoes they are definitely an investment as well as being something seen as an attractive, luxury, quality item. As for the top dog breeds they aren’t a type of dog that is particularly disliked as the British public seem to like all dogs whether they are small, big, fluffy, smooth, strong or gentle.
I finally decided on a campaign idea where I could take high-quality photoshoot like a photograph of the rescue dogs in which they look like they could appear in high fashion magazines such as Vogue and Elle. I could them photoshop in high fashion brand products like Louboutin shoes, Chanel bags etc to create a link between rescue dogs and highly luxury brands to create a sense of want and desire.
I could then add captions such as
- ” Labradors are the new Louboutins”
- ” Beagles are the new Balenciaga”
- “Rottweilers are the new Ralph Lauren”
- “German Shepherds are the new Givenchy”
- “Boxers are the new Burberry”
The negative to this idea is that it could be conceived the wrong way and people may be more likely of finding private breeders online in the same way you would buy clothes by going online.
Photographs at Dogs Trust
I went back to the Dogs Trust centre in Leeds on the 14th of February and met with Kevin Johnson to take photographs of a few dogs in one of the outside play areas. I met three dogs, first Bramble a Crossbreed and then Fred a Greyhound and finally Tinks an American bulldog who just happened to be on a walk as we were leaving.
I got a lot of insight and some great photos which I then touched up in Photoshop when I got home. For a lot of the photos, I cropped them down to get better close-ups of the dog and remove some of the fencings of the play compound to make it look like they were in less of an enclosed space and dispell and thoughts that they may be “fenced in”.
After speaking to Paul we decided the best thing to do with the photos was to just add really effect, relevant and targeting captions to them to evoke a pathos and response. I made up adverts that could be used on flyers and posters as well as being shared and re-shared on social media.
I thought that these made rather weak promotional graphics though and I could make something more relevant with current trends and more visually appealing.
I looked back at ideas and trends and revisited the style of Polaroids which are a huge trend currently and are back in style with people taking film photos and then posting them on social media to achieve a retro feel with a sense of fond memories as it makes people think back to good old family time. I think this fondness in which we look back at film as a way of preserving happy family memories will work well in evoking pathos in people and make them think back to dogs they had as a child and make them consider getting another while also making them consider rescue dogs.
I had planned to order prints on my photos online which of put into a polaroid frame and then handwriting the captions on to give a more personal handmade touch but unfortunately the photos got lost in the post and the reordered once will not come in time for the deadline so I have instead photoshopped my photos that I took into stock images from Adobe stock and used the Dogs Trust ‘GoodDog’ font to type the captions the same as seen on the first ad examples. This is the final result as stand-alone designs and applied on outdoor and online applications.
Natalie Rose 