IMC Plan for Friends of Beverly Animals

Maria Kangas, Robin DuRoss, Olivia Vaillant, and Allison Alloca

Product and Market Background:
The campaign is about fundraising as much money as we can for Friends of Beverly
Animals (FOBA). We want FOBA to be better known in the surrounding towns of Beverly that do
not have animal shelters/organizations. This campaign is needed to strengthen FOBA as a whole
and to improve awareness of the organization due to strong competition from other
shelters/organizations who already have a large customer base. FOBA has long term plans to
become an animal shelter instead of using foster homes (Friends of Beverly Animals, 2015), but
they need to be better known and make more to make this dream a reality.
In the pet purchasing industry, FOBA is positioned as a non-profit, community based
rescue organization that relies on charitable donations from fundraising. FOBA helps homeless
pets in Beverly or surrounding towns to find the best home possible. FOBA currently competes
against pet stores, other shelters and rescue organizations, home adoptions, and breeders. FOBA
is a low cost, humane, and ethically appropriate alternative for people seeking a pet. Currently,
FOBA is well regarded in the community due to the number of supporters listed on their website.
These supporters include: Not Your Average Joes, Beverly Animal Hospital, Super Subs, etc. The
relationship these supporters have with FOBA is important. Relationships like these cause the
volunteers and the supporters to both be engaged, teamwork becomes more positive and aligned,
and the donors are happy (Walker, 2013). Also, having relationships creates more trust with the
donor. These supporters are treated as a third-party to the donors (Koenig, n. d.). These third
parties can help validate a non-profits mission and also endorse the non-profit organization
(Koenig, n .d). For FOBA, having all of these supporters is to their advantage; it helps the
relationship become stronger between the donors and the organization.
There are many essential features of FOBA that stand out from other competitors. Since
the cats and dogs are fostered in homes, this makes the organization not institutionalized.
Therefore, this infuses the brand with the feeling of home-care, love, coziness, welcome, and
commitment. Pet stores such as Petsmart show animals in glass cages with nothing put torn paper
on the bottom of the cage. Those glass cages are the animals homes were they sleep, play, and do
their business. Animal shelters have a similar quality because their animals are also left in cages.
The only difference is that animals have more room to play. However, these types of institutions
give customers a sense that the animals are trapped, which makes the customers feel sympathetic
on one hand, but suspicious about their care. FOBA is distinguished from these institutionalized
places due to their unique essential features of home life for the foster pets. Also, these features
can give customers a sense of confidence that the cats and dogs are well taken care of, loved, and
are able to adapt to a family quickly.
Along with these essential features, the Humane Society writes that adopting from a
shelter/rescue organization is the best method to find a pet due to the essential features of a rescue
organization. According to the Humane Society webpage (2013), Most pets end up homeless
through no fault of their own"moving" and "landlord issues" are the top reasons people give for
relinquishing their pets, meaning shelters and rescue groups are full of wonderful, family-ready
pets. Also, the Humane Society says that pets at rescue organizations typically cost less money
than they would at pet stores. People who work at rescue organizations always want to make sure
the pet is a right fit for the family so a relationship is typically built between the rescue
organization and the future pet owners. Also, the Humane Society (2013) says an extra bonus to
adopting a pet from a rescue organization is that all of the pets are medically taken care of and are
spayed/neutered so the customers wont have to worry about an extra bill to pay.

Target Market/Audience:
About Target Audience
Considering the likes on their Facebook page, and the fundraisers they host, FOBAs current
audience is middle-aged women and animal activists. FOBA is easy to find online, and residents
in the surrounding area know to contact them will all lost and found pets. However, FOBA has
needs other than adoption, such as donations of food, money for vaccinations or foster housing
for their surplus of cats. They need to gain notoriety and communal support by hosting more kidfriendly events involving the animals.
FOBA has the potential to better market their organization by targeting families and
children. More specifically, FOBAs target audience for this campaign is women ages 27-40 who
are family and community oriented. Not only are these women animal lovers, but they are likely
to push their children to get involved with the community, through sports and local volunteer
work. Our target audience devotes a large quantity of time to their children, reflecting a busy,
fast-paced lifestyle.
Psychographics of Primary Audience
When targeting FOBAs audience, they will focus on the adoption of cats because FOBA
has too many for the capacity of present foster housing. Considering the psychological traits of
cat lovers, research has shown they thrive on independence. According to a study conducted by
Denise Guastello, an associate professor of psychology at Carroll University, cat lovers were
more introverted, more open-minded and more sensitive than dog lovers. Comparatively, results
of this study showed cat lovers to have a more non-conformist attitude than dog lovers. However,
of the 600 college students surveyed, only 11% considered themselves to be cat lovers, which
means FOBA will target the introverted and sensitive sides of their audience. Targeting these
particular personality traits will make FOBA relatable, recognizable and memorable in their
audiences mind.
The debate between cat lovers and dog lovers will go on for eternity, so FOBA will
benefit from an anti-dog approach. This is not to say they will demean dogs, but their focus and
deliverables will all relate to cats. According to Real Clear Science there are many reasons why
cats can make better pets than dogs. In the database for U.S. Pet Ownership statistics, 36.5% of
households owned dogs, while only 30.4% owned cats, so we must convince our audience to help
flip those statistics. Real Clear Science claims that cats are cheaper, have better smell, sight and
hearing than dogs, and require less energy to live. Also, cats tend to be less of a responsibility
because they dont require the same attention, exercise and diet of a dog.
Judging the demographic proximity of our audience, the financial benefit of choosing a
cat over a dog will be highly considered. According to City Data, in 2012 the median income of a
Beverly family was roughly $69,000 annually. This puts most people in the middle class income
range. It is expected that those living with middle class circumstances are cost-effective; therefore
cats are their best financial option.
Secondary Audience
Our secondary audience is empty nesters, a member of the Baby Boomer generation
(ages 51-69), that have had pets, but are not educated about the process of adoption.
Psychologically, Baby Boomers are more sentimental about their pets because they grew up in the
generation that first considered pets a member of the family. According to Deseret News, Baby
Boomers, as one large demographic, have turned to pets when the kids move away. They were
helicopter parents hovering over their kids, and now they're hovering over their pets" (Penrod,

2013). The baby boomer generation is also responsible for many soaring years of industry profit.
In 2012, the Denver Post predicted that Baby Boomers would account for $52 billion of annual
profit for pet goods ranging from food, to accessories and medication.
Baby Boomers are innovative and non-conformists. The Baby Boomer generation piloted
rebelling against social norms. Many examples include liberal expression of sexuality,
experimentation with drugs, womens rights and the era of rock and roll. The Denver Post said
this of baby boomers:
with their desire for flexibility and mobility (they) are sinking money into products
and services previous generations never considered, like automatic feeding devices and
litter boxes or pet-sitting services (Associated Press, 2012).
Taking these attributes into consideration, this campaign will target the secondary audience by
rebelling against, and disputing the most common misconceptions that inundate the shelter pet
adoption community.
According to Pet Finder, there are some myths that FOBA should concentrate on
squandering. Our approach to our secondary audience is to inform about pet adoption and
promote health benefits. The first misconception pet store shoppers have is that the pet store is the
only place they can purchase a healthy, purebred pet. FOBA will inform their secondary audience
that they vaccinate all their pets prior to adoption, and although they may not have purebred
animals, they have animals that need them. The most prominent delusion for pet adoption is that
the pets come with full histories and testy personalities. Although this may be true, any pet can be
a great one if it is trained properly. We must find members of our secondary audience who are
willing to sacrifice some time to bond with their pet, which shouldnt be a tough decision for
empty nesters longing for companionship.
Key Things to Promote
To our primary audience, we will promote the satisfaction of saving an animals life, a
sense of community, the financial benefits of adopting a cat and the opposition to pet stores and
mills. According to the Humane Society of USA, pet stores are more concerned with profits than
the welfare of their animals. FOBA, on the other hand, will promote their allegiance to the their
animals and customers well-being. Adhering to their busy lifestyle, FOBA will promote cats as
independent animals that have little need for affection and attention. Therefore, a cat would not be
an extreme amount of extra responsibility for active mothers.
To our secondary audience, FOBA will inform their audience of the easy and rewarding
adoption process. They will focus on selling the health of FOBA animals, compared to those in
pet stores, as well as specify the health benefits of pets for Baby Boomers. The Human Animal
Bond Research Initiative group has researched, and credited pets with lowering blood pressure
and reducing anxiety for seniors. Baby Boomers are more likely to buy older animals because of
their age, and the inconvenience of caring for a kitten or puppy. However, this campaign will
resonate with our secondary audience by promoting the sense of belonging an empty-nester will
have with their new pet.
Media:
Media is going to be an essential part of spreading awareness for FOBA. Currently,
presence on the Internet is where FOBA is lacking and the organization needs to build a better
online platform if they want to reach out to current customers as well as potential new ones.
Access to FOBA online means customers who are not in the surrounding areas and live far away
are able to find them easily.
As of today, FOBA has a Facebook page. Facebook is one of the most popular ways to
advertise to customers. A Facebook page allows a small business/organization to communicate

effectively, create a new community online, and increase traffic and growth for the
company/organization (Mercer, 2015). However, FOBA needs to advertise the animals that need
to be adopted as well as possible fundraisers. It is important for FOBA to show the animals in the
natural environment in the foster homes. The goal of the Facebook page should be to show the
potential customers the cozy and welcoming effect that the foster homes provide. Currently, the
post every once in a while about an animal that needs to be adopted, however the organization
should post at least every other day. Viewers should see as many animals as possible, as
frequently as possible. Showing more of the animals may improve adoption rates.
A Facebook campaign is known to be successful for engaging customers, involving them
with the organization, and giving them a bigger reason to donate to the cause. A Facebook
campaign shows the commitment that the organization has and it also shows that the organization
wants to create a deeper and more involved relationship with its audience. One example of a
Facebook campaign is each week those who have adopted a pet from FOBA or other rescue
organizations take a picture with their pet(s) and post it to the FOBAs Facebook page. FOBA will
select one winner, and that winner receives the honor of having their photo be shown on FOBAs
website as well as be their profile picture on Facebook. This campaign can go on for a certain
number of weeks (usually 8 weeks), and there would be a total of 8 winners (1 winner per week).
This campaign will help spread the word of FOBA and also the audience will feel included and
wanted.
Another very important social media outlet that can be used is Instagram. Instagram is
solely a picture website, but it can be used to FOBAs advantage. FOBA has the cuteness factor
of their animals. It is no secret that many people cannot resist cute pictures of animals. When a
cute picture is seen, many people are likely to share this picture, like it, favorite it, etc. On
Instagram, this is a huge advantage because the more cute pictures that FOBA puts up on their
Instagram account, the more likes theyll receive and their followers will grow. Cute photos
capture attention, bring a smile to the viewers face and induce motivation and behavior for
approach and caregiving (Bender, 2012). Overall, an Instagram will cause no harm to FOBA,
and should be completely beneficial to the organization.
Lastly, FOBA needs a Twitter to help attract the audience.You can do everything on
Twitter that you do on Facebook, plus stuff thats actually useful. And theres much less mindless
minutia to wade through (The Street, 2012). Twitter is becoming more popular than Facebook
due to its simple platform, entertainment, and constant updates with the news as well as
companies/organizations (The Street, 2012). On Twitter, FOBA has the ability to create their own
unique hashtag that can trend among the audience and this specific hashtag can cause FOBAs
audience to expand and also can spread awareness about the organization easily since the hashtag
will forever be in the Twitter system. Twitter also allows constant updates that FOBA can give
their audience, and it is acceptable on Twitter to tweet two or three times a day, as on Facebook is
acceptable to post about once a day.
Radio is an extremely effective way to reach your target audience. According to an
Edison Research Study, Moms listen to 12 hours and 4 minutes of the radio per week (DeCesare,
2014). This includes AM/FM radio, as well as Internet radio. Pandora is the most used radio app
on a moms smartphone (DeCesare, 2014) However, getting an ad on Pandora can be difficult and
have a high price that doesnt fit in the budget. We would stick to FM radio ads to spread
awareness about FOBA. According to a 2013 study, the average mom drives around her children
around for 1, 248 miles per year (Fairchild, 2014). Also, mothers spend more than half of their
time in the car chauffeuring their kids and running errands (Fairchild, 2014). So, radio would be a
big way to get the message out there to mothers of the family. In Beverly, North Shore 104.9 FM
is popular because it plays the news, as well as older songs from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s (North
Shore 104.9 webpage). That would be the number one radio station to advertise FOBA because
the signal of the radio station has been recently improved and now will reach a potential 2.4
million people in the Boston Radio Market. The Boston Radio Market is the 10 th ranked radio

market in the United States (Good Morning Gloucester, 2013). Other minor stations that FOBA
can advertise on would be stations like Magic 106.7, Lite Rock 105.1, and Mix 104.5.
One creative idea is to send oversized postcards to everyone who signs up for the newsletter and
emails. These postcards will picture the animals that will be adopted along with a quick story
about each of them. Each postcard will feature three animals. On the back of the postcard there
will be a bumper sticker attached for the potential customer/donor to put on their car. This way,
once they throw out the postcard then they will still have the bumper sticker as a deliverable from
FOBA.
Also, since we want to connect to families with young children, we would want to give
out to the elementary and middle school kids pencils with an animal eraser at the top. This would
help engage the kids and they would be excited about this product, especially the kids who are
between the ages of second-fifth grade.
FOBA already sends out an online newsletter. However, it would be more beneficial to
send out an online newsletter about every two weeks to give the audience an update of how the
organization is doing and what they need. These newsletters can include information about pets
that still need a home, new pets just recently put up for adoption, upcoming fundraisers, new
deliverables that FOBA is in the process of making, and what radio stations to tune in to hear
their advertisements. Email blasts are a great way to get customers to pay attention. However,
they shouldnt send multiple emails a day, because that can cause a person to put FOBAs emails
into a spam folder. However, FOBA should send an email every other day about ways to donate,
promote their animals, goals, and foster homes. Photos in these emails will be important because
no one wants to see an email full of many paragraphs. These photos will capture the potential
customers attention. These emails and newsletters will keep FOBA in their minds.
Lastly, brochures and flyers are the classic way to advertise. The brochures will be placed
in the foster homes as well as local schools. Flyers will be placed all around town and
surrounding areas in May when the weather gets nice, that way when people are walking out on
the street enjoying the warm weather they will also pass out flyers. The flyers will also be hung
up in local schools and children can take the flyers home to their parents.
Competition:
Northeast animal shelter is one of FOBAs biggest competitions. NEAS have a very neat
and clean website that is easy to navigate. The viewer is able to see all that is going on with the
non-profit. They have everything spelled out from the events that they are putting on to raise
money to how to adopt an animal and all the credentials that goes along with that process. NEAS
is more of an established shelter that many people know about since it is one of the largest no kill
shelters in New England.
The ASPCA is a national competition for FOBA. The ASPCA has had amazing marketing
plans since they are one of the most known non profit animal organizations. They have
commercials that air on television, and their website is put together and easy to follow. You can
learn all about the organization and they display all of the opportunities that they have to adopt
and donate to support the organization. ASPCA continues to get their name out there by
partnering with different companies. Most recently they partnered with Forever 21 to sell hoodies
and one dollar from each sale was donated to the ASPCA. We worked together previously in
2011 on a similar collection and the response was fantastic. It was a fun and creative processthe
best part was seeing the final product and knowing it will be a vehicle for us to spread the word
about our work and mission, Keri Matthews, senior manager of marketing and licensing at the
ASPCA, tells InStyle.
One of the other big national animal shelters is the Humane Society. On their website
they focus on different animal shelter each week, and promote the good things that are going on
in that shelter. This could be a good idea for FOBA to use to showcase their new animals that

have come into the shelter and showcase a post about the new animals. Another good thing about
their website is all of their tabs are located on the side that are easy for the viewer to navigate.
Similar to the other websites the donate button is easy to see and is at the top view point. The
main thing similar to the others is the website is extremely organized and that is a key point for
an organization to have so that potential donors and adopters can navigate.
FOBA currently is not organized on their web page. This is a downfall but, the advantage
is FOBA can redesign the website since they are a fairly new organization that is trying to
establish as a no kill shelter in the Beverly area. FOBA has control now to remarket themselves to
the public. FOBA would like to market to families and make their business about animals finding
homes with caring families in the area. Marketing will help FOBA become more recognizable,
and it will help them have the reputation of a new shelter system in Beverly. This way they will
be able to keep up with NEAS and be able to grow and thrive in their business.
Proposition/ Promise/ Benefit:
Friends of Beverly Animals is focused on Fostering and adoption. They want all of their
animals to find loving and caring homes in the community. If they are able to raise awareness in
the community about their mission and the stray cats that FOBA foster, they will be able to have a
stronger bond with the residence in the community. With rescuing the cats off of the street they
are creating a clean community for the families in Beverly. Building that relationship is crucial to
gaining donations and more supporters of FOBA. Not only will the relationship be growing and
it will help more people in the community, the animals will find loving homes.
Message/ Tone of Voice:
The tone of voice throughout our campaign for FOBA will be warm, welcoming and
comforting. For this campaign we really want to promote the idea of companionship between a
family and animal. A warm, welcoming and comforting campaign will invite the consumer to
become more attached to the organization and the product FOBA is providing. According to
Roger Dooley, Emotion-based ads may be more difficult to create, but the stats say its worth the
effort (Neuromarketing). Although the campaign for FOBA wont necessarily be emotional, the
main tone will be warm and inviting, sharing with the audience what great joy there is in rescuing
an animal, which will cause some sort of emotional connection with the advertisement.
Rescuing an animal from a foster home is a very rewarding decision and throughout the
campaign it will be key to not only share with the consumers the importance of this, as well as the
benefit it provides them. FOBA provides them with a loving companion who will bring a family
together. These two messages are very important to the campaign in reaching the target audience.
Lastly, the value of adopting from this organization is beneficial to their community and will help
keep Beverly/ Danvers free of stray animals. By supporting the organization it will give these
animals a safe place to stay, and a safe place for our target audiences children to play. FOBAs
main message to share with the target audience is that the organization is dedicated to bringing
together a family through companionship.
The Budget:
Postcards (50): 16.00
Bumper stickers (50) 114.00
Pencils (288): 47.99
Stickers (large circles) (240): 150.00

Radio Ads: $7.50 per advertisement

Brochures (50): 70.00
Flyers (50): 34.99
The Deadline:
The audience will get the message starting at the beginning of April. That is when FOBA
should be sending out notices about their spring fundraiser on Facebook, emails, radio
advertisements, and the news letters. The spring fundraiser will happen in the middle of May
because that is when the weather will improve and it is close to school getting out for elementary
and middle school. Also, the nice weather provides a nice atmosphere for the fundraiser since it
will be outdoors. To attract the kids to go to the fundraiser, there will be a face painter ready to
paint the kids faces any kind of animal the child chooses. There will be barbecue, and volunteers
will help cook the food. There will also be a donation drive for the cats, that way people can bring
money, cat food, water, treats, etc. All of this information will be talked about mostly in April and
the beginning of the May. The goal is for the audience to be reached completely by the middle of
May.
The Evaluation:
The hope is for the client to see that the campaign does spread awareness. It spreads
awareness through multiple platforms shown through the report. It will spread awareness through
social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, and that gives FOBA a potential to reach
a completely new audience over the Internet. With all of the planned deliverables and media,
FOBA should see the growth in followers. There is much more to be done, but given the time
limit this should be a campaign that should reach its goal and grab the attention of children as
well as their families.
There are two tools that we can show our client that will help them continue to monitor
their growth of their audience as the campaign continues. Those two tools are Hootsuite and
Sentiment140. These two websites are used to track what people are saying about the
organization and when the organization is mentioned on social media. Since on Instagram FOBA
will be using hashtags, then those hashtags can trend among the audience and they can use those
hashtags on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Using Hootsuite, they can track when the
companys name is mentioned as well as when the hashtag is mentioned. This way, they can see
what people are saying about the organization. For Sentiment140, the company can use this to
track specifically tweets about the company. Sentiment140 tracks if the tweets are positive or
negative. This can be used to FOBAs advantage because they can see what peoples opinions are,
and if more tweets are positive then they know they are in the right direction. If more tweets are
negative, then they know they have some work to do and they have the ability to change what
they need to. These two tools can help the organization monitor what is being said and can guide
them to what they need to change.

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