Triumph Together: Digital Storytelling and Brand Growth

As an agency full of dog-lovers and passionate storytellers, we’ve found that we create some of our best work when we are able to combine the two. Over the last couple of years, we have worked closely with our client, Triumph Pet Food, to launch and build upon the Triumph Together campaign. 

The idea behind Triumph Together is that our lives are fuller and richer when our dogs are by our side. We fuel our bodies with healthy, protein-rich food so that we are ready to take on whatever adventure comes our way. It is important that our furry adventure pals eat a well-balanced diet, too. Triumph Pet Food makes it easy to ensure that pets receive the proper nutrition they need. Recipes that are packed with healthy fruits, veggies, and super premium meats help dogs of all ages stay active. 

Behind The Scenes

Using data cultivated from our successful Portland content campaign, we planned a new content shoot that capitalized on two things. First, genuine outdoor adventures. And secondly, regional, recognizable imagery to serve our ongoing goals of elevating engagement, expanding reach and increasing our page growth. This shoot focused on gathering summer adventure content, so we knew Asheville, North Carolina, would be the perfect place. During the pre-production stage, we intentionally selected stories that would resonate with the Triumph audiences and those interested in adventuring with their pets, our target audience.

It is no surprise that COVID-19 threw multiple curveballs our way. In the spring of 2020, we were forced to see how we could rework existing content we had for the brand. During that time, we built upon the Triumph Together story concept for the brand. 

When we started planning (and replanning…thanks, COVID) our Asheville shoot, we knew we wanted to make this regional shoot the best one yet.  We found unique dog-centered stories to create short documentary-style content relevant to our brand and audience. The content proved to be ultra-shareable and lent itself nicely to expanding audiences. 

Accessing Triumph’s core brand values of health and adventure, the shoot highlighted themes of community, escape and rejuvenation. For this shoot, we focused on aquatic and lush landscapes. We drove these themes home with refreshing water imagery and the rich, green liveliness of forest life. We captured real people on adventures including hiking, mountain biking and trail running. 

The content from this shoot worked well for organic and paid campaigns in the spring, summer and early fall months. Additionally, the assets from this campaign helped us build our credibility and brand awareness in the Southeast.

In addition to carrying out our shoot objectives, we were able to use deliverables for other marketing initiatives. Some of which included email campaigns, trade shows, banner ads and a photo feature in a local Asheville magazine!

GOALS

When going into this project, we knew we wanted to create a successful multi-faceted marketing and branding campaign. It was important that the assets could live outside of social media as well. We wanted to provide our client with deliverables that could be used for trade show booths, print ads and eCommerce, too. 

With that in mind, here were our top goals: 

1. Growth – Grow following by increasing regional brand awareness in the Southeast region – similar to how we were able to build awareness in the Pacific Northwest region through our Portland shoot.
2. Genuine Engagement – Engage current fan base to retain followers.
3. Multi-level Use – Create assets that help the sales team and are valuable for social marketing.
4. Storytelling – Use storytelling to reach new audiences and bring new followers to our social channels. 

TARGET AUDIENCE

When thinking of who we wanted to reach with this project, we had to think of it in four ways. 

1. Current Fans – We want to continuously engage our current fans to increase engagement on content, ultimately driving sales. 
2. 2019 & 2020 Engaged Users –  We worked hard to rebuild Triumph Pet Food’s branding to create a brand that genuinely connected to the active and adventurous pet parent. We knew that the content coming from the Asheville shoot would resonate with our custom audiences and that we could retarget those audiences with this new content. 
3. Interest – To strengthen the audiences we already developed for Triumph Pet Food and to add new ones, interest targeting played an important role in this campaign’s execution. We used keywords to connect to adventurous pet parents. Some of the keywords were REI, watersports, outdoor recreation and outdoor enthusiasts. 
4. Geo-targeted – In order to grow regionally and build our credibility in key markets, we had to share stories that were relevant to that market and make sure that the right people were seeing them.  In addition to gaining fans in the Southeast, we also were able to show key retailers that we supported their territory and were able to offer them additional assets to sell Triumph Pet Food at their location. 

RESULTS

A few months after we shared inspiring stories of adventure and companionship with Triumph’s audiences, it was easy to see that they LOVED it! The campaign was a huge success with more than 537k video views on social, over 106k engaged users, multiple email campaigns with record-breaking open rates, and over 34k link clicks from YouTube banner ads. We were excited to see the Laurel of Asheville feature one of our stories in their publication, too! 

As always, we were sure to squeeze a little fun in the mix! We visited popular local breweries, woke up early to catch sunrises, and made sure to pet all dogs who came our way. ?

Check out a few of our favorite deliverables below. 

Email Template:

Testimonial:

YouTube Banner Ads:

Sales Catalog:

IGTV:

 

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A post shared by Triumph Pet Food (@triumphpetfood)

The Laurel of Asheville Article:

Angela Alexander Featured in Pet Food Commercial