In 2024, PetSmart Charities reached an extraordinary milestone: 11 million pet adoptions!
But rather than simply announcing the number, we showcased the journey of five adoptable pets competing for the coveted title of ‘PetSmart Charities 11 millionth adopted pet’ across our owned and social media channels for National Adoption Week (NAW).
Inspired by reality TV shows like The Bachelor and Love Island, the PetSmart Charities 11 Million Reality Series followed the foster pets as they "competed" to be crowned the 11 Millionth Adoption. Each pet was fostered by a PetSmart Charities team member, including our President Aimee Gilbreath, for three days before the big adoption event, in which drama, competition, and hilarity ensued, all with the goal of helping pets find loving homes.
We leveraged vertical video, long-form content, and platform-native storytelling on Facebook and Instagram, turning pet adoption into a culturally relevant and highly shareable moment that resonated with audiences across the U.S.
Our primary goals:
By creating this bespoke social media reality series, we aimed to make pet adoption fun, engaging, and highly shareable. It allowed for deeper storytelling as viewers could follow the complete journey of pet adoption from shelter > to foster > adoption event and, ultimately, finding their forever home.
To bring The Journey to 11 Million to life, we took a platform-specific approach, recognizing that Facebook and Instagram audiences engage with content differently. Instead of a one-size-fits-all campaign, we crafted two distinct storytelling styles that would resonate on each platform.
On Instagram, we leaned into the energy of reality TV, creating episodic, fast-paced content infused with humor, dramatic voting rounds, and confessional-style clips from our foster champions. The content felt native to the platform—vertical, high-energy, and interactive—pulling audiences into the competition in a way that felt organic and entertaining.
Meanwhile, on Facebook, we focused on heartfelt storytelling, honing in on two adoption journeys. One being Razor who was fostered by Aimee Gilbreath, President of PetSmart Charities, and Goofball, the pet who ultimately became the 11 millionth adoption. Through long-form, documentary-style content, we told emotional, feel-good stories that resonated with our Facebook audience, who tends to engage more deeply with in-depth, heartwarming narratives.
By tailoring our content to each platform’s strengths, we ensured that whether audiences were drawn to humor and competition or deep, emotional storytelling, they found a reason to engage with and share the campaign.
Reality TV Meets Social Good
Instead of a traditional PSA, we built a social-first video series that truly felt like a reality show—one where the stakes weren’t just competition bragging rights, but the chance for pets to find their forever homes.
Each episode introduced five adoptable pets with unique personalities, quirks, and backstories. Foster champions played the role of contestants, delivering heartfelt (and often hilarious) confessional-style monologues to advocate for their chosen pets. Every twist and turn—whether a dramatic elimination or a heartfelt success story—kept audiences engaged and invested in the journey to the 11 millionth adoption.
Bringing the Story to Life Across Platforms
We optimized content formats to ensure maximum engagement across our digital ecosystem:
- Instagram & Facebook: Native videos with interactive story elements to spark engagement
- YouTube & Facebook: A full-length, documentary-style adoption journey for deeper storytelling
- Reels & Short-Form Video: Bite-sized, high-energy clips optimized for attention-grabbing hooks
- Regional Storytelling: Spotlighting local adoption events and ongoing programs at PetSmart stores nationwide
- Humor-Driven Narrative: Classic reality TV tropes—over-the-top drama, comedic asides, and playful rivalry—kept the campaign entertaining while reinforcing our mission
Challenges & Solutions
Cutting Through the Noise: To break through the cluttered social landscape, we tapped into nostalgia for classic reality TV on Instagram and delivered heartfelt, long-form storytelling on Facebook to maximize emotional impact.
Balancing Humor with Heart: Every piece of content had a lighthearted, entertaining tone, but it never lost sight of the mission—helping pets find loving homes.
By blending humor with heart, competition with compassion, and strategy with storytelling, The Journey to 11 Million became more than just a campaign—it became an experience that audiences wanted to participate in.
The 11 Million series didn’t just get views—it drove real impact.
Our content generated 1.6 million video views across Instagram and Facebook. The series accounted for 65% of our monthly engagements on Instagram.
With that momentum, its addition significantly boosted our social performance for October’s National Adoption Week compared to previous campaigns. Overall engagement surged +54.6% vs. March National Adoption Week and +218.7% vs. July National Adoption Week across Meta.
Adoption Success & Social Good Impact:
- All five featured pets were adopted or found foster care within days of the finale.
- Our National Adoption Week campaign efforts resulted in 19,473 pets being adopted across the country
-The ’winning’ pet received a year of free pet food through our partnership with Hill’s Pet Nutrition
- The campaign solidified PetSmart Charities as a leader in adoptions and animal welfare
Through humor, interactive storytelling, and social-native execution, 11 Million turned a milestone into a movement—proving that adoption awareness can be entertaining, compelling, and truly life-changing
