Animal Marketing
Animal marketing is a very broad topic. It can also be a difficult one to navigate, attempting to avoid stereotypes and portraying ethical representation of animals. As I navigated through looking at the various ways that animals are represented, I decided to turn to shelters for adoption purposes. Since the focus of our final project on animals, for me specifically, cats, is about how to help them get adopted I believe animals shelters and organizations are some of the best resources.
I specifically focused on three organizations: the Tooele City Animal Shelter, the Cache Humane Society, and PETA. I chose each of these groups because the first two are on a local level to where I live and where I am from. Meanwhile, PETA is an internationally known animal rights organization. I focused on their websites and social media platforms: Instagram and Facebook.
The Tooele City Animal Shelter and Cache Humane Society shared many similarities on their websites, despite one being a government entity and the other a private organization. On their websites, they would decorate it with positive, almost child-like themes of aesthetics and animals. This is to increase the mood and likelihood, I'm assuming, of visitors adopting their animals. It's also filled with helpful information and resources for caring for animals. This would help the general populace feel more qualified in taking care of an animal, and therefore, increase the likelihood.
Their social media platforms were very similar. They over-rely on an appeal to Pathos, assuming their audiences are more likely to buy. They use cute, positive photos to represent cats and dogs that are up for adoption. Meanwhile, the captions are very friendly and point out the animal's traits and personality. This is for establishing a connection with their human audience. They almost humanize the animals and their behavior in hope that people will adopt them.
PETA, however, was a drastic turn. Instead of a positive appeal to Pathos, it's an appeal towards more negative emotions. There are differences between PETA and the shelters, with PETA being focused on animal rights and advocacy instead of getting animals adopted. Despite some hypocrisies found in the organization's behavior, their photo representations of animals showcase more horrific actions undertaken against them. They also include a broader representation of animals, including turkeys being mutilated and slaughtered. Their appeal to guilt and disgust is probably just as effective towards their achieving their goal of animal advocacy as the goal of animal shelters.
I have found through the comparison of the various organizations, that social media is probably the best way to advocate for adoption for the animal I represent. Using cute, warming, and positive photos would assist in an appeal to pathos within target adopters. Highlighting and showcasing the positive traits of the animal through descriptive writing is also the general consensus with animal adoption. Hopefully, I can serve the animal well enough and find creative ways to get it adopted.
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