The situation
There is a real disconnect when it comes to dog owners fully understanding the effects that noise aversion has on their dog’s quality of life. Sileo, a prescription medication for the treatment of noise aversion, is available as a sound solution for dogs who are afraid of noises. However, it’s a drug that was mostly prescribed around July 4, when dogs show fear of fireworks and thunder. There was a significant opportunity to grow the brand beyond a summer-only drug. Noise events happen year-round, and some of the common culprits are found in and around our homes.
Dog owners think that they know their dogs inside and out—what they’re feeling and what they’re trying to tell us. While that’s true to some extent, we quickly found that there’s so much more to how our dogs communicate with us that we needed to learn. In fact, most pet owners think that they know their dogs, but only 60% of dogs are taken to the vet for a proper noise aversion diagnosis and treatment. Overall, many cues of fear and anxiety related to noises are overlooked.
The insight
Through all of our research and the lived experience with our own noise-fearing dogs, we developed a mission for the brand that could represent what we wanted the brand to live up to, explained how we wanted customers to feel, and created the tone in which we would speak to them. Today, people are willing to go to great lengths to make their dogs feel comfortable. Opening their eyes to noise aversion is not just telling them about the symptoms that they may be missing—it’s about highlighting the emotional common ground between dogs and their owners. That led us to the mission for Sileo: to deepen the human-dog connection.
Because the fear and anxiety that dogs feel are very similar to what humans feel during stressful situations, and because dogs also have the emotional perspective of a toddler, we took the approach of turning fear-inducing sounds into monsters. From a dog’s perspective, noises that cause anxiety are boogeymen—creatures lurking around the home that seem harmless to us but strike real fear in them.
The solution
We created the “noise monsters”—depictions of fireworks and other sounds that cause fear in dogs—to educate dog owners about noise aversion and direct them to Sileo as a solution. Short social video ads helped build awareness about the upcoming Fourth of July holiday and the other sounds around the home that can trigger symptoms. Ads linked to a super-cool interactive quiz to help owners assess if their dog is suffering from noise aversion.
The results
The Sileo “Noise Monster” social campaign was scary successful in 2020. Consumer social ads brought in over 38,000 clicks on the Fourth of July ad over 5 days. Overall, it reached nearly 1.4 million users, with a 2.91% click-through ratio across all campaigns, which was a 175% increase in CTR over the 2019 social campaign. Additionally, we earned 22,621 quiz completions. And last but not least, more dog owners are aware of noise aversion, more vets are aware of and prescribing Sileo, and more dogs are being brave in the face of “noise monsters.” Now that’s what we call the sound of success.