Barking brilliant.
Helping connect Pedigree consumers and partners with potential pet enthusiasts .
The Challenge:
Pedigree was looking to connect with its vast number of pet owners and dog enthusiasts and bring them together on an online platform. They had reams of lists of people buying Pedigree products and associations with kennels and dog shows. They needed an online presence to anchor their communication and build a digital first CRM program. This would have a web presence at its core but would be a truly integrated approach, leveraging existing on-ground marketing outreaches & brand amabassadors.The Work
The Solution:
wer4pets was conceived as a digital platform that not only connected and engaged with existing pet owners but also provided information to people who were interested in owning a pet. While content in the form of articles on breeds and pet advice with the odd fun element formed the core of the idea for this site, the site also provides utility value such as identifying the best places to walk your dog, a listing of pets up for adoption and accesses to expert veterinary help. Bridging the gap between pet enthusiasts and owners in a social manner.The Experience
The Bone Tree:
The Bone Tree is an encyclopedia of dog breeds. It’s the place to turn to if you want to know more about your favourite pooch. Some of the initial functionalities that were pitched for this feature included allowing people to find dogs of a particular breed for breeding or adoption. Pet owners with the same breed could talk to each other or prospective pet owners could learn first hand what it would be like to own a particular breed.Pet profiles:
Every member on the site is allowed to create a profile for both themselves and the pets that they own. The pet profile focusses on showing off your pet. It also helps you grow your network, especially with people who are interested in the breed that you own.Dogixs:
We’ve all heard of the saying it’s a dog’s world. The saying comes to life with comics that were created from a dog’s point of view.Dog walks:
Dog walks was an app that was conceived to let pet owners share their favourite routes to walk their dog everyday. This feature used Google Maps to allow users to share their favourite paths with each other in an easy way.The Experience
Project Diary:
We must have been barking mad
I’ve always loved to bite off more than the team could chew on. The platform for Pedigree was a time when we threw caution to the wind and planned to sell in something really outrageous. We dared to dream big with a platform that was ahead of its time. Blending social content and utility together perfectly. The truth is the team the conceived the idea and sold it in differed quite a bit to the team that was actually tasked on bringing the dream alive as the client returned after almost a year of internal selling.
We couldn’t have taken this project live without our trusty Art Director – Shirish Prabhudesai and our technology partner Vivek Sasikumar. I spent long evenings with both working out what this site would look like and how it could all come together from a functional point of view. This has been one of my most rewarding and fun projects outside perhaps the work done for Reward Me for P&G. A site that really had the entire digital team at one point pitch in to get the build out on time. A unifying project like no other.
The site has seen several iterations since it first went up. And has been migrated across two different CMS systems and multiple themes.