Background Homes
SPCA, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Issue 58 | March 2021
Agency
Forsman & Bodenfors Singapore
Creative Team
Qihao Shum, Firrdaus Yusoff Designer Jason Feng
Other Credits
Campaign Manager Adrian Ortiz Planner Julia Blomquist
Date
May - December 2020
Background
SPCA provided care and shelter for rescue animals, helping them find homes through their regular adoption initiatives. But when lockdown was rolled out in Singapore, SPCA had to find new ways to connect these pets with potential owners, while everyone was stuck at home.
Idea
Reports showed that in Q2 of 2020, the three most downloaded apps in Singapore were Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Everyone was conducting their meetings, social gatherings, workouts, reunions, baby showers, even dates on these platforms. Many started using virtual backgrounds, ranging from picturesque holiday destinations, their old office space, favourite movie posters, or for some, their dream living space.
Background Homes allowed people to bring shelter pets into their conference calls with them.
Results
With zero budget for shoot, production or PR, free coverage was received from lifestyle, mom & kid magazines, marketing & trade sites and even from major broadsheets. Visit rates to the website surged by 23% and enquiries for adoption surpassed the numbers from the start of the year. All the pets featured on the wallpapers found new homes.
Our Thoughts
Pedigree recognised the power of Zoom as a platform on which to bring dogs and potential owners together (see pages 26-27) but this is subtly different. It uses Zoom as an advertising medium. Not only is it an invitation to ‘try out’ a pet in your home, it advertises the animal to others in the call. What I love about this idea is how ridiculously simple it is. It doesn’t just provide a service for abandoned pets, it provides a service to human beings in making their video conferencing a heck of a lot more interesting.