SAVING CATS

This is the story of how I used creativity and strategy skills learned in the ad industry to save over ten cats from a terrible fate and help them find a forever home.

BACKGROUND:

In the summer of 2021, I and my girlfriend spent two weeks at her vacation home in one of the beautiful Egadi Islands in Sicily. From the first day, I couldn’t help but notice how the idyllic, paradise-like island we were staying in was inhabited by several hungry packs of stray cats.

During summer, most of these animals get regularly fed by a few kind people who spend the entire season there as well as by the many groups of tourists who visit the island every day. As a result, the cats get healthier and breed without control giving birth to dozens of kittens by late September.

Then winter comes.

Most people leave the island, and the cats are left starving, with very little to hunt and threatened by frequent storms and the cold.

‘C’est la vie’ most of the uncaring locals think as they look the other way.

We didn’t. And while we couldn’t, unfortunately, rescue all the two hundred furry creatures on the island, we managed to find a new home to the entire small pack of ten cats we cared for that summer––in less than three months.

Here’s how we did it, described in an advertising-friendly way:

STEP 1: RESEARCH

We began by establishing who needed and wanted our specific product. To do so, we did some photoshoots and then wrote several posts on Instagram and Facebook as well as contacted five animal welfare associations that operate nationally. Some of our posts got hundreds of reshares and comments.

STEP 2: THE PITCH

Most people loved our pitch! That’s because we offered ourselves to make the travel, go rescue a chosen cat in Sicily, and deliver it anywhere in the north of Italy. The only thing we asked for was to chat a bit and get on the phone with a prospect owner to see if he/she was fit for adoption.

It was quite a long journey, and we did four of them.

STEP 3: BUDGET & NEGOTIATING THE PRICE

Amounting to several hundreds of euros in expenses per travel including flights and sleeping in pet-friendly hotels, saving a cat was not just a huge emotional and physical effort.

That’s why we asked each future owner to split with us the costs of traveling and vaccinating their future son/daughter.

STEP 4: EXECUTION

By leveraging a team of eight people, we saved ten starved Sicilian cats and help them relocate to loving families between Milan and Turin. Quite the rags to riches story, if you ask me.

One we adopted ourselves 😉