Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 04.04.2022 
When it comes to creating astounding campaigns that truly engage, inspire and deliver impactful results – our team has been leading the way for over 16 years.
With offices based in Leeds and London, The Lucre Group specialise in authentic storytelling that goes far beyond simply sharing a message. We’re here to change people’s thinking. The way audiences consume media is ever-evolving. So we are constantly expanding and adapting our expertise in insights, SEO, content and communications to stay ahead of the game. Why just fulfil a brief when you can exceed it, challenge limitations and embrace the opportunities that come from them?
That’s why we’re delighted to be nominated as Best Integrated Digital PR award for our ‘Pup-demic’ campaign with leading raw and natural pet food brand, Natures Menu.
This multi-media and research driven campaign tapped into lockdown behavioral shifts in media consumption whilst specifically targeting new dog owners. Considering a tremendous 3.2 million UK households acquired a pet since the start of the pandemic, we saw this as a ‘pawfect’ opportunity to raise awareness about Natures Menu being the top nutritional choice for feeding the new arrivals. Our brief was to capitalise on this significant increase in pet ownership, attract new audiences and inform the public on the brand’s key messages surrounding nutrition. Lucre being Lucre, we went above and beyond to make this happen.
Our approach was strategic and thorough; amplifying our press office program as well as creating impactful content based on search insights as the nation adapted to being new pet parents. This included an award-winning podcast, SEO inspired content and research-led headlines that positioned Natures Menu as the ‘go-to’ source of knowledge for pet nutrition, as well as market leaders in the raw and natural pet food industry.
The six-month long campaign meant we were constantly working on fresh angles around pet ownership, using our unearthed trends data to listen to what consumers were searching for. We then carefully seeded the headlines to high-ranking outlets and hero titles such as The Mail Online, The Telegraph, Metro and BBC National Radio – leading to over 400,000 engagements. This creative and reactive approach saw the brand enter a completely new channel and resulted in over 250 million people being reached through 378 pieces of coverage. Not only that, but 70% of this featured links to the Natures Menu website – resulting in a 200% increase in traffic and an E-commerce conversion rate of 16.22%. Within phase one of the campaign, the sales allowed it to be almost self-funding.
To run parallel with this, we created ‘The Pupcast’ podcast. This included 5 episodes to coincide with puppies reaching tricky adolescent stages of development – delving into the most searched topics to keep consumer interest and relevance at the forefront. The podcast had over 1,000 downloads in the first three months and gave the brand a new platform to showcase its achievement of an unbeatable five-star rating. The popular show proved to be a hit with the listeners – with over 800 click-throughs straight to the website.
All these links from multiple sources supported a business performance that saw over 26,000 new customers onboarded during the key campaign period, and home delivery sales doubled. An exceeded brief, indeed.
‘’The Pup-demic campaign was the extremely successful result of a huge collective effort from our team here at Lucre – demonstrating our brilliant range of skills across the agency. We’re delighted to be nominated in the UK Digital PR Awards and can’t wait for the big night!’’
We’re really looking forward to the UK Digital PR Awards and wish all the other nominees the best of luck! In the meantime, head on over to our website for a closer look at more of our client campaigns…
Author: Sophie Bradshaw, Lucre
