Helping Harringtons achieve its goal of donating 1 million meals to pets in need

Having donated a staggering 300,000 meals to animal charities during the pandemic, Harringtons decided they wanted to maintain this momentum and asked us for our help.

Working with their team, we created Miles and Meals - a wellness-led campaign designed to get people moving post-lockdown and to donate more meals to pets in need. According to a PDSA report, 44% of owners walked their dog for less than 30 minutes at a time, 13% of dogs didn’t get a walk every day and 1% were never walked - we wanted to turn this around, make pets happier and all while giving something back.

We set Harringtons’ customers a challenge: for every mile they walked, ran or swam, Harringtons would donate a meal to shelters and rescue centres up and down the country.

Harringtons have always been more than just pet food. We pivoted their social media strategy to reflect this, positioning Social Responsibility as a top priority and focus; our vision was to showcase who they are as a brand.

Harringtons had already established its connection with the idea of “Dogventures”; fuelling its customers’ outdoor activities with their products, so we springboarded from this to create a challenge that made their customers (and their team) feel connected with their plans to focus on People, Pets and the Planet.

After researching a wide range of apps and integrations, we decided that Strava’s API was the best tool for the job - allowing users to log their exercise to contribute to our goal of walking and running (and swimming!) 1 million miles.

We developed Miles and Meals’ visual identity to create something that fitted in with their wider branding but still had its own individual voice. Alongside their “always-on” content, Harringtons provide a wide range of campaigns for customers to engage with, such as Pet Club, Puppy Club and Positive Pawprint, and we needed to ensure that each had its own time to shine.

Once the campaign had launched, we handed it over to the Harringtons team and they ran with it (pardon the pun)! This resulted in them achieving their goal in a matter of months, and securing UK-wide PR coverage.