Rover.com: European Dog Name Report

Our task was to launch Rover’s annual Pet Names report – an overview of the most popular names for dogs in the past year – in the UK, and manage the roll out in France, Spain and Germany to build the Rover brand across the continent.

This campaign required a razor-sharp data mining strategy in order to sweat the Rover data from 2 million dog owners worldwide. We requested searches that were as topical as possible – identifying trends and cultural moments from the previous year, and asking Rover to see how they affected Brits’, and our European counterparts’, pet name choices.

In addition to revealing the top rankings, in the UK we explored the impact of EURO 2020, the influence of political figures such as Boris and global events like the pandemic. These trends were illustrated in a series of infographics and supplemented the wider story with expert commentary from Rover’s resident canine behaviouralist, who offered tips on how to name your dog. Understanding that the topic of pet names would be perfect for TV and radio, we facilitated conversation by pulling bespoke data regarding the popularity of the presenters’ own names.

We then led the toolkit development – including all the assets, data, template releases and media strategy – and shared it with the three additional markets via agencies within the Brands2Life Global Network, supporting them through every stage of the process.

In the UK, the campaign secured over 50 pieces of print and online coverage – including four national hits in the likes of the Metro, Sun on Sunday and The i. A campaign highlight included coverage of the report on Capital Radio, during which the presenters, Roman and Sonny, discussed the popularity of their own names for dogs – not only was that a great hit in its own right, the segment was also posted on its Instagram channel, raising further awareness of the report.

Combining the efforts of the rest of Europe, the campaign secured 143 pieces of coverage – including six broadcast hits and a total potential campaign reach of over 280 million.