Raising awareness and driving conversations through PR for MSD Animal Health
Find out how we engaged nearly 900 million people for global animal health provider, MSD Animal Health .
Challenge
When MSD Animal Health came to us, it was with two objectives in mind:
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To encourage pet owners to have conversations with their vet about the options for flea and tick treatment that are available, with a focus on brand-new year-round injectable
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To raise awareness about the importance of yearly vaccinations and the risk of disease to promote the vet relationship and encourage pet owners to visit their vet
As a global animal health provider, MSD Animal Health is no stranger to PR — having previously landed coverage across vet, agricultural and medical trade media titles.
Our brief was to take their PR to the next level by expanding MSD Animal Health’s reach to pet-owner facing press for the very first time and sustaining this over the course of three campaigns.
Solution
After delving into the brief from the team at MSD Animal Health, we knew exactly what to do.
Campaign 1 & 2 — StreetVet and SARDA
These campaigns aimed to drive conversations among pet owners about the importance of year-round tick and flea prevention by amplifying news around MSD Animal Health's partnership with homelessness charity, StreetVet, and Scottish search and rescue charity, SARDA.
Key activity included:
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Creating an uplifting narrative that would convey the impact of these partnerships and raise awareness about the flea and tick protection, whilst remaining relevant for the news agenda
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Enlisting PA media and The Media Firm to support with the creation of engaging imagery to bring these stories to life with on-site media days in Cornwall and Glencoe
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Securing high-profile celebrity ambassador, Julia Bradbury, to amplify the campaign by engaging with media interviews, attending the media day, and creating social media content
Campaign 3 — Vaccination Awareness
This campaign aimed to increase awareness of the importance of vaccinations and the risk of disease and promote the vet relationship to encourage pet owners to visit their vet by overcoming blockers and address pet owner pain points around vaccinating their pet.
To achieve this, we:
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Had research commissioned to discover the percentage of pet conditions that could have been fixed had they caught earlier and uncover other newsworthy insights about UK pet owners
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Partnered with celebrity vet ambassador, Dr James Greenwood, to enhance the credibility of the campaign by providing a source of expertise to de-mystifying blockers to getting pets vaccinated on a yearly basis
Impact
Over the course of six months and three campaigns, we:
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Raised awareness of the importance of flea and tick protection and yearly vaccinations for dogs and cats among pet owners across the UK by expanding MSD Animal Health’s reach to pet-owner facing press for the first time — reaching 861M+ people between January and June.
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Boosted brand visibility for MSD Animal Health, its consumer-facing arm MyPet.com and charity partners, by collaborating with two high-profile ambassadors on campaign aligned social media content, engaging with nearly 40 community groups on Facebook and by maintaining an average DA score of 59.5 across campaign coverage.
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Encouraged conversations about tick and flea protection and 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.