Colenso BBDO

Client: Mars
Product: Innovation
Title: MyHooman
Media: Advertising
Country: New Zealand
Date Of Campaign: November 2021 ongoing

Background: 200 million dogs worldwide are homeless. It’s Pedigree’s mission to put an end to this harrowing statistic by 2030. They’ve driven pet adoption through marketing, but inherent challenges at the core of the traditional adoption model limit their success.People often shop for the dog they want - based on superficial reasons like appearance and breed - not the dog that’s right for their lifestyle. As a result, up to one in five dogs are returned to shelters, resulting in long-lasting detrimental effects.We needed to flip the way traditional animal adoption works, stopping humans shopping for animals like accessories, and instead helping dogs find the human that’s right for their needs.

Idea: Introducing MyHooman: the first end-to-end adoption platform that puts dogs first, aggregating dogs from all shelters and analysing data to find the right human to suit dogs’ needs. It removes subjectivity, using data to match dogs to the right adopters for them. Potential adopters answer questions that allow MyHooman to gather data and understand their life-style. A little like Tinder UI, users flick through cards of dogs’ profiles, choosing from dogs who had already swiped right on them.HOW DOES THE DOG SWIPE RIGHT?Shelter workers use their side of the platform to input and adjust multiple data points on each dog throughout their stay.Our algorithm then scans 60 unique data points, makes 2,442 calculations and filtered through 157.3 quintillion possible combinations. In-real time. Serving people matches within seconds. Every pair is given a compatibility score out of 100. Matches are then sorted into a stack of ‘cards’, with the most compatible on top.Potential adopters get live prompts to undertake different actions up until adoption. If there isn’t a right match, they are served personalised retargeting banners of new matches once available. The algorithm means dogs match with the right hooman, the first time - and are less likely to be returned to a shelter.

Results: 37% of visitors to the site matched with potential dogs.41% of dogs uploaded to the platform have been adopted.The dog adoption return rate has dropped from 16% to >1%.New Zealand represents >1% of the global MARS market. If we globally had the same impact as 2020, we would have contributed to 33% of all global efforts.