idea
fireworks are a new year’s tradition which is beautiful to us, but terrifying to pets, as well as feral and wild animals, causing them to react in panic, sometimes getting injured, lost, or worse. we wanted to bring focus to a problem many remain ignorant to.
this becomes a daily occurance in the month of december, reaching a peak on the night of the 31st. so, in the weeks before new year’s eve we decided to let people know the consequences that come with setting off firecrackers and fireworks.
the idea to do something about it came from one of our graphic designers whose own dog would struggle to cope with the sound of the explosions.
execution
we kicked off the campaign with a single unsponsored post on facebook. to convey the image of fireworks as a source of fear and discomfort, we visualized the bright clouds as a monster looming over the city. the sparks and smoke are a scary enough place to begin, but a harder look at the image reveals the monster hidden within them.
this is contrasted by a helpless dog, hunched over in the dark where most people wouldn’t normally see it. using saturated colors and dimensions we brought it forward in people’s minds, where the image will hopefully stick.
inspired by instagram’s iconic “sound on” sticker,
we created a series of gifs to support the campaign
by searching the hashtag #soundOFF, users could our gifs and help spread the message
the overwhelming response gave us the confidence we needed to go further — a video was shot and released in a matter of days, premiering on four paws’ facebook page and later airing on the biggest television network in bulgaria.
results
in just four days after it was posted, the original facebook post had organically reached over 500,000 people, in a country of 6 million. before new year’s, the number had climbed to nearly a million. it wasn’t long before major news outlets caught wind of four paws’ campaign and began doing stories on it. #soundOFF was covered by national media a total of 591 times, bringing an important conversation to the mainstream. a week before the new year the topic was trending on twitter, and supporters of the campaign began contacting government officials.
the four paws website received an all time high number of visits during the campaign, 5k of which directly to the tailor-made landing page giving more information about the issue, making it the most visited page out of any website the organization has globally.
but most importantly, the campaign evoked real change. 15 major regions in the country, the capital included, announced publicly that they’d be foregoing the use of fireworks in the government-funded celebration of the new year.
———————————
client side: Denitsa Slavovacreative director: angel iskrev
copywriter: Asya Maradzhiyska
junior copywriter: Krista Yankova
head of art: Emanuela Belovarski
graphic designer: Andriana Petkova
account director: Sanya Stefanova
account executive: Ivana Valcheva
strategist: Mira Panova
junior strategist: Ioana Tacă
motion graphic: vess blackstone
honorary mention: Boyana Aleksieva
video: PushPull Production
voice actor: Beloslava
music: ALI — Bliss + Blasphemy (Four Paws Edit)
