Raising awareness and driving trial of Earth Animal in the UK for six years
Challenge
After co-ordinating the initial launch of Earth Animal’s award-winning No-Hide® Chews in the UK, we were tasked to develop a communications strategy with two key focus areas:
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To drive brand awareness of Earth Animal
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To drive trial of Earth Animal’s No-Hide® Chews
Earth Animal’s No-Hide® Chews are the first of their kind, offering a healthy, long-lasting alternative to rawhide with natural ingredients.
Our goal was to build on the momentum created by the initial UK launch to build an online community and secure third-party advocacy, both of which would raise brand awareness and drive product trial.
Solution
We tapped into our pet marketing expertise for this challenge and developed a communications strategy that would enable us to engage with Earth Animal’s key audiences.
Over the last six years, we have continued to evolve our strategy to reflect the brand’s growth and adapt to changes in both the pet industry and the social media landscape. Today, the key strands of our strategy include:
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Social media — As a brand that can’t sell direct to consumers, building an online community is really important. Our social media strategy focuses on telling the brand’s story and highlighting its products through four content pillars: enjoyment, safety, impact and quality.
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Pet influencers — We have leveraged our network of pet influencers to foster strong relationships which has created brand ambassadors for Earth Animal’s products. 78% of consumers in the UK trust influencers more than traditional advertising, so this community of brand advocates is essential for engaging Earth Animal’s target audience.
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Digital — Implemented a data-driven paid social strategy to drive on-brand content to our target audience and direct them to either Earth Animal’s social channels, the Earth Animal website or its independent retailers and their physical or digital stores.
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Reactive PR — Maintained an always-on reactive approach to PR, engaging with target media in the consumer and pet sectors to pitch in Earth Animal reactively for product guides, gifting opportunities, and much more.
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Event support — Leveraging industry events like Crufts and PATS to engage with our target audiences, both end consumers and trade, with in-person support on stands and development of social media and marketing activations to drive visitation and post-event engagement.
Impact
Over the past six years, our impact on the Earth Animal brand has been vast, highlights including:
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Grown Earth Animal’s social media channels from 0 to over 55,000 across Instagram and Facebook
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Delivered social media content that has reached more than 22 million people since 2021
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Successfully launched three new products, including the limited-edition The Barbeque and The Feast No-Hide® Chews and No-Hide® Strips
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In the last two years alone, we’ve collaborated with more than 230 pet influencers with a combined reach of 4.2M
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Implemented a paid social strategy that has reached 1.7M people in the last year alone and is operating at an average CPC of 20p
Testimonial
"We love working with the team at Leopard Co, their expertise has helped us to grow a community of pet parents and dog lovers that engage with our content. They’ve supported us across our channels; from working with influencers to making our content more engaging, to fine-tuning our paid strategy — it always feels like we’ve got a real partner in our corner!"