Make a Milk-Bone Moment

Consumer Activation Target
Pet Parents

Challenge
Milk-Bone, the category leader, was facing growing competition from a variety of fronts including Natural, Organic and Private Label brands. Understanding the emotional connection between a pet and their “pet parent” Milk-Bone looked to celebrate their long standing heritage and product quality, and the important role that pets play in delivering unconditional commitment, loyalty and companionship. Leveraging this emotional connection, to separate Milk-Bone from the “pack” and drive volume, was the challenge put forth to Alcone.

Solution
Alcone created “Make a Milk-Bone Moment™”—an integrated Consumer Activation™ program celebrating the brand’s heritage and milestone 100th Anniversary. The foundation of the program was a celebration of Pet and Pet Parent where consumers were invited to submit their “Milk-Bone Moment” for the chance to win fame and fortune for them and their dog! Consumers were invited to submit photos/videos of their special moment with their dog—their “Milk-Bone Moment.” All submissions were posted online and America was invited to vote, selecting the most compelling “Milk-Bone Moment.” The winning moment and “top dog” received a $100K contract, becoming the first ever Milk-Bone SpokesDog. The program was supported by promotional packaging, in-theater advertising, celebrity- and celebrity dog-hosted PR launch event including The World’s Largest Dog House built out of Milk-Bones, a charitable tie-in with “K9 Heroes” and service dogs, national mobile marketing tour, online activation and in-store support.

Results
In addition to celebrating the emotional bond between pet and pet parent, the promotion drove increases of 3.5%+ ($) and 4.5%+ (volume) across the Milk-Bone portfolio, successfully introduced a new SKU, doubled web traffic and time spent on milkbone.com, and garnered over 2,700 media features driving over 178 million media impressions.