Ipswich City Council needed a responsible dog ownership campaign that people would actually watch. Traditional public service messaging on this topic tends to feel like homework. The answer was to make people laugh before telling them what to do.
Community education campaigns often face the same problem: people know they're being told what to do and tune out accordingly. Dog ownership messaging can quickly fall into predictable territory. Rules, obligations, and reminders are important, but they rarely create engagement on their own. The campaign needed to communicate behavioural messaging without sounding instructional, repetitive, or overly formal.
We spent time in concept development testing ideas before landing on the one that changed everything: Don't Be a Shih Tzu. That phrase shifted the entire tone immediately. Humour opened the door. The message did the work once people stayed long enough to hear it. Production leaned into slapstick timing, visual exaggeration, and accessible storytelling. Community campaigns work best when audiences lower their guard first.
More than 45,000 unique unsponsored views. For community education content, that's an unusually strong result. People watched it, shared it, and remembered it. Which is three more things than most council campaigns achieve.
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