Bella & Duke: Breaking Misconceptions

Leading pet food and wellbeing company, Bella & Duke, know first-hand the problem with misconceptions. There continues to be misconceptions around raw feeding, and pet nutrition generally, and Bella & Duke worked with Muckle Media to create a campaign to tackle these head on.

Challenge

Muckle Media was tasked with highlighting the misconceptions around pet nutrition, so these could be challenged, however, pet nutrition and raw feeding in particular, is not a subject regularly or widely covered in mainstream media, so we needed to find an angle to secure wider coverage.

With this in mind, the #BreakingMisconceptions campaign was created, and focused on three pillars of misconceptions, all linking back to Bella & Duke: pet breeds, pet owners, and raw food.

Strategy

To launch the campaign, research was conducted to find the biggest misconceptions around pets. The research was used to give the news hook and highlight the reason for the campaign. Stats included:

Jack Russell Terriers were voted the loudest (21%)
46% of people think Greyhounds need a lot of exercise
When asked about cats, over a third (37%) of people said they think our feline friends look after themselves

To go alongside the launch, Bella & Duke professionally photographed customers who have a pet that is misconceived to directly challenge these. As well as worked with influencers including @Bluestaffyboulder, and @chester_the_sausage_ to create content supporting the campaign.

To coincide with the campaign launch, several social assets were created, as well as a dedicated section on the Bella & Duke website.

Results

The campaign launched with three story moments spread apart, all linking back to Bella & Duke and the misconceptions of pet nutrition. Alongside the initial launch, Bella & Duke founder, Mark Scott, took part in a radio day to discuss the research and campaign, speaking to a total of 14 radio stations, with a total of 2.18m total weekly listeners, including BBC Radio London’s pet hour.

Across the three stories, 52 pieces of coverage was secured across UK national, regional, lifestyle and trade press. All coverage and results for the #BreakingMisconceptions campaign can be found here. On social, the campaign had a combined reach of 91k and an average engagement rate of 5.92%.

During the campaign period, Bella & Duke’s share of voice increased over competitors.