Chudleys has a range of highly nutritious dry food for working dogs, specifically gundogs. With over 40 years of experience behind them, Chudleys pride themselves on providing quality complete diets for dogs in the field.
Brief
The aim was to build Chudleys’ brand and product awareness to increase their reach within the gundog and field-sports markets using social media.
Approach
We immersed ourselves in the gundog industry to understand the relationship between gundogs and their handlers. Quickly, we understood the key differences between the needs and lifestyle of the working dog and pet dog. Although gundogs are still much-loved companions, these working dogs have a role to play, whether it’s flushing out game, pest control, or retrieving birds. Therefore, excellent nutrition is essential to maintain the stamina and strength necessary during a long day in the field.
We also recognised that gundog owners are extremely proud of their dogs, as well as being very keen to learn and open to being inspired, which was important to leverage within our strategy.
Our approach was to develop ‘always on’ messaging to connect with the tight-knit gundog audience on Instagram and Facebook with content that educates, engages, and inspires. Each month, we focused on a different flavour of feed and themed our content around this. Content included:
- Monthly brand partner giveaway — we teamed up with brands selling products that appealed to gundog owners, such as whistles, training tools, and apparel. They gifted products to give away on Chudleys’ channels, which drove high engagement levels and new followers to the channel.
- #HallOfGame — a friendly competition with a new twist every month. Gundog owners were encouraged to proudly post pictures aligned to themes such as wet dogs, sleepy dogs, happy dogs, with a prize for the best shot. With the entries shortlisted to four, the competitive owners campaigned to see their dogs come out on top, sharing the content with their networks.
- Influencers — we partnered with key Instagram gundog influencers with a #ChooseChudleys hand-packed bundle of products including a sample bag of food, branded training dummy, and detailed information about the product. The influencers then posted about Chudleys, helping us to recruit new followers to the page. We gained testimonials for our organic content, which advocated for the product.
On top of the monthly always-on content, we developed campaigns at key times of the year — the shooting season (October-January) and pre-season training period (summer) — to capitalise on the build up and excitement.
Impact
Chudleys’ Facebook and Instagram grew and maintained high engagement rates, uniting and engaging the gundog community, regularly reaching over 30,000 people and receiving 3,000 unique engagements every month.
50% of the influencers considered switching to a Chudleys diet upon receiving the samples; what’s more, their supporting content helped reach more gundog owners within their own communities and generated brand awareness.
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