GAIA 🤝 Lisa: a standout editorial integration with exceptional performance figures
Can you think of an advertising campaign that was this creative in concept and execution, and this successful right from the start? We can! GAIA's awareness campaign around puppy mills in April 2023 was exactly that. By weaving fiction and reality together, animal rights organisation GAIA managed to make Flemish audiences aware of this issue. How? Read on.
Creative approach
Puppy mills — breeding dogs purely for profit, with animal welfare taking a back seat — are sadly still a reality in our country today. GAIA wants to raise awareness among Belgians and show that puppy mills fuel animal suffering.
What is the best way to make people aware of an issue? Exactly: appeal to their emotions by making the problem as tangible as possible. That is where telenovela Lisa played a key role. Lisa is set around marketing agency Massa. How powerful would it be to watch a campaign come together from A to Z within the series — and then, when that campaign launches inside the show, see and hear it everywhere in real life too? It deepens the viewer's connection to your brand and your message. That was the approach our Integreate team took when bringing the GAIA campaign to life.
"When GAIA asked us to bring the issue of puppy mills to a wide audience, we pulled out all the stops to translate that message as creatively as possible," says Delphine Creemers, Creative Content Manager at Integreate. "That's how we landed on this campaign centred around puppy mill pup Charlie — seamlessly blurring the line between fiction and reality."
Watch the case movie of GAIA & Lisa here
Cross-media reach
When rolling out the cross-media GAIA campaign — billboards around Lisa, radio, print and native articles on hln.be — we put it through rigorous research to measure its impact. 500 Flemish respondents (aged 18–54) were surveyed as part of the DPG Media ImPact (MIP) study. The research revealed two things: how the campaign shifted perceptions of puppy mills among Flemish audiences, and what added value the integration of this issue into Lisa actually delivered.
If you want to make an impact, your campaign needs to stand out. GAIA's certainly did. After three weeks, 56% of Flemish respondents said they had seen or heard at least one element of the campaign. The radio spot featuring puppy Charlie was clearly the driving force, achieving a recognition rate of 42% on its own (benchmark: 33%). Unsurprisingly, the campaign was noticed proportionally more by people who had seen it come to life in Lisa. 7 in 10 Lisa viewers said they had seen or heard the campaign in real life. That higher recognition among Lisa viewers goes hand in hand with the fact that they also simply liked the campaign more (higher likeability: 7.1 vs. 6.8/10 among non-Lisa viewers).
What makes this campaign stand out? The campaign's distinctive quality lies in the emotional response it triggers. Most advertising aims to spark positive emotions — joy, excitement — and steer clear of negative ones. GAIA does the exact opposite. A striking 6 in 10 Flemish listeners (61%) feel sadness when they hear the radio spot. For most radio spots, that figure hovers around 13%.
The strategy of emotionally engaging Flemish audiences by making the suffering caused by puppy mills tangible was designed to make the message stick. 81% of people exposed to the campaign say they have become more aware of the issue of puppy mills. It made them realise that puppy mills are a significant cause of animal suffering. That awareness was visible among both Lisa viewers and non-Lisa viewers — which is a positive sign. It shows that you don't need to know the background from the telenovela to fully understand the message.
The Lisa integration as an activating trigger
Seeing the campaign come to life in Lisa has one major added benefit: it increases viewer engagement with GAIA. The campaign broadly gets people talking about GAIA — but to take that next step towards concrete action, the Lisa integration is key. Lisa viewers are clearly more triggered to find out more about GAIA, and actively went looking for information about the organisation. And most importantly: they also report significantly higher support for GAIA during the campaign period.
The GAIA campaign in collaboration with Lisa is a great example of how a creative approach can add real value in helping you reach your goal as a brand. Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, we'll only be talking about puppy mills as fiction — not reality.
Want to develop a creative campaign of your own? Get in touch with the Integreate team.