Rover.com: Couples that Pet Together

Building brand awareness across Europe.

Challenge

Rover needed its first campaign across three core European markets (UK, FR and ES) to build brand awareness following the Dog Buddy acquisition and land with a bang. We needed to ensure our story communicated the benefits of using the Rover.com service, and not be just another ‘fun dog story’.

Approach

Rover refers to its dog owners as ‘pet parents’ and with more city-dwelling professional couples delaying parenthood, we wanted to prove that getting a dog was the first step to showing each other real commitment, leading to happier and healthier relationships.

We first surveyed couples with dogs across the UK, France and Spain who said getting a dog requires teamwork and trust, with almost half becoming more attracted to their partner since becoming pet parents. The findings also showed that meeting someone who is a ‘dog person’ is a top priority when looking for a potential partner.

To bolster our earned media outreach and tap into the perennial ‘dog mania’ on social, we also identified 5 top instagrammers, who shared their lives as a couple and dog owners. We negotiated a total of 58 posts and stories, generating over 15,000 engagements and, by including a link in bio to the Rover platform, lead to hundreds of click-throughs.

Impact

Earned media coverage landed in top tier titles in all markets, including Metro, Daily Star, Unilad, Tyla, GQ and Psychologies, with a total reach of 65m. The average cost of engagement for influencers was £1.20 in the UK and €0.43 in France and Spain. Local outreach in Europe was handled by agencies within the Brands2Life Global Network.