Getting the UK talking about pet vaccinations for MSD Animal Health
Intro
MSD Animal Health wanted to reach pet owners across the UK with important messages around year-round flea and tick protection, annual vaccinations, and the value of maintaining a regular relationship with their vet.
As a global animal health provider, MSD Animal Health had already achieved coverage across vet, agricultural and medical trade media. The opportunity was to take its PR activity further by expanding its reach into pet-owner facing press for the first time, while sustaining awareness across three campaigns.
Through a series of creative PR campaigns, Leopard Co helped MSD Animal Health bring complex pet health topics into mainstream conversations, using charity partnerships, celebrity ambassadors, media days, social media and credible expert voices to engage pet owners across the UK.
Challenge
MSD Animal Health came to Leopard Co with two clear communications objectives.
Challenge #1
The first was to encourage pet owners to speak to their vets about flea and tick treatment options, with a focus on a brand-new year-round injectable.
Challenge #2
The second was to raise awareness of the importance of yearly vaccinations, the risk of disease, and the role of the vet relationship in helping pet owners protect their animals.
The challenge was to communicate these topics in a way that would resonate with everyday pet owners, while navigating the regulatory complexity of promoting a veterinary product directly to consumers.
This meant the work needed to feel accessible, newsworthy and emotionally engaging, rather than overly clinical or product led.
Solution
To broach the topics of flea and tick protection and yearly vaccinations in a way that would resonate with UK pet owners, Leopard Co developed three PR campaigns.
Campaigns 1 and 2: StreetVet and SARDA
The first two campaigns aimed to drive conversations among pet owners about the importance of year-round tick and flea prevention. We did this by amplifying news around MSD Animal Health’s partnerships with homelessness charity StreetVet and Scottish search and rescue charity SARDA.
The StreetVet partnership enabled the charity to offer free essential veterinary care to the pets of people experiencing homelessness, with year-round flea and tick protection donated by MSD Animal Health.
To bring these stories to life, Leopard Co created an uplifting narrative that conveyed the human and animal impact of the partnerships, while raising awareness of flea and tick protection in a way that remained relevant for the news agenda.
The activity included:
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Enlisting PA Media and The Media Firm to create engaging imagery through on-site media days in Cornwall and Glencoe
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Securing high-profile celebrity ambassador Julia Bradbury to amplify the campaign through media interviews, attendance at the media day and social media content
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Engaging pet-owner facing, national, regional, vet and pet trade titles to expand MSD Animal Health’s reach beyond traditional trade PR
Campaign 3: Vaccination awareness
The third campaign focused on increasing awareness of the importance of annual vaccinations and the risk of disease associated with lapsing on them.
A secondary objective was to promote the vet relationship and encourage pet owners to visit their vet by overcoming blockers and addressing common pain points around vaccinating pets.
To support this, Leopard Co commissioned research to uncover newsworthy insights about UK pet owners, including the percentage of pet conditions that could have been addressed earlier if caught sooner.
We also partnered with celebrity vet ambassador Dr James Greenwood, who brought expert credibility to the campaign and helped demystify the blockers that prevent pet owners from getting their pets vaccinated every year.
Impact
Across the three campaigns, Leopard Co helped MSD Animal Health raise awareness of the importance of flea and tick protection and yearly vaccinations for dogs and cats among pet owners across the UK.
The campaign expanded MSD Animal Health’s reach into pet-owner facing press for the first time, reaching more than 861 million people between January and June.
The activity also boosted brand visibility for MSD Animal Health, its consumer-facing arm MyPet.com and its charity partners. This was achieved through campaign-aligned social media content with two high-profile ambassadors, engagement with nearly 40 community groups on Facebook, and an average domain authority score of 59.5 across campaign coverage.
The campaign encouraged conversations about tick and flea protection and annual vaccinations by facilitating 10 interviews with celebrity ambassadors and charity representatives across national, regional, consumer, vet and pet trade titles, shared in broadcast, print and online formats.
The StreetVet campaign also delivered strong standalone results, including 278 million media reach, more than 18 pieces of coverage referencing MyPet.com, three tier-one media interviews for Julia Bradbury with The Sun, i Paper and Metro, and more than 64,000 views and 750 engagements from Julia Bradbury’s campaign social content.