Crisis Communications - Animal Edition
Animal welfare is a passion project at Five & Two Marketing. As a 15-year board of directors member for the Galveston Island Humane Society (GIHS), Five & Two Marketing CEO Liz Rogers has been honored to serve and advocate for animals on the island in various capacities. What started as volunteer work to support marketing needs has grown into a full team strategy. We currently provide web, social, and print assets for GIHS in addition to volunteering for events and fundraisers. Our entire Five & Two team is comprised of animal lovers and we all professionally and personally love working with the shelters and finding forever homes for animals.
SEPTEMBER 7, 2022
On September 7, 2022, Five & Two Marketing was informed of severe overcrowding at the Galveston Island Humane Society (GIHS). GIHS has the capacity to care for 55 dogs and 84 cats. The shelter was housing 85 dogs and 140 cats, so essentially they were over capacity by 30 dogs and 60 cats.
Five & Two Marketing created a crisis communications strategy to immediately move 30 dogs and 60 cats into adoption or foster to help bring the shelter back to operating levels.
Strategy:
The initial step was developing a press release with (1) the state of the shelter and (2) specific actionable items the public could take to support GIHS. These call-to-action items were: adopt, foster, or share with intention. The press release was immediately distributed to media lists and posted to social platforms (Facebook and Instagram) and the shelter’s website.
A social media strategy was developed focusing on the longest-term resident large dogs, which were the hardest to adopt and received the least attention historically. Emphasis was put on foster as an option (with resources and support provided), as well as a focus on short-term foster (one-week commitment).
The tone of the social media strategy was very intentional: the use of red and black to indicate urgency, large bold calls to action, and lots of supporting reels footage focusing on individual dogs and the shelter’s crisis as a whole. Consistent messaging was used in every post and reel.
As pets were adopted or fostered, updates were made, and focus shifted to the next longest-term resident dog.
The media strategy was also crucial: exposure to local print, television, and radio was vital to communicating the crisis at the shelter. We engaged with GCDN, i45Now, ABC 13, KHEA Radio, and numerous social media partners to help. Board members gave public comments at City Council and the City of Galveston published the press release and sent a text message alert to all residents with a link to the release.
The administrative side of this campaign cannot go unacknowledged: Five & Two staff also responded to thousands of comments and inquiries on social media about adoptable pets and ways the public could assist.
We engaged with Transport Committee meetings to help determine what options were available for potential adopters that lived out of state. An email was set up specifically for transport so that we could funnel adopters to resources.
As a result of these specific actions, the following outcome occurred in 14 days:
Number of dogs that have been adopted since September 7th: 43
Number of cats that have been adopted since September 7th: 45
Number of Dogs that are currently in our care: 114 total; 68 on site
Number of Cats that are currently in our care: 254 total; 146 on site
Total number of animals adopted: 88
Total number of animals in foster care: 155
When GIHS leadership and staff determined that they were at normal operating levels, our team scaled back on the tone and intensity of social posting. We continued to promote animals using brand colors and tones, at a reduced frequency.
We are extremely proud of the outcome of this communications effort and the lasting impact the shelter’s transparency had on our community. If you’re looking for a thoughtful, planned communications strategy or if you need crisis communications in response to an event, Five & Two Marketing has more than 20 years of communications and incident response experience. We would love to connect!
