The Good Dog-Catcher campaign, signed by GMP Group for Vier Pfoten Romania, in top 6 Best Ads

Cristina Blanaru Ads, Creativity

The good dog-catcher, a campaign made by GMP Group for Vier Pfoten Romania, was, last week, in top 6 best outdoor campaigns in the world, according to a ranking made by Best Ads on TV.

The campaign was launched in December 2013, as a solution to the crises started by last autumn’s tragedy, when a child was killed by a stray dog. Public opinion divided into those who want to mass kill stray dogs and those that love dogs and are against slaying them.

case good dog catcher

GMP proposed an innovative solution, namely reconverting stray dogs into assistance dogs for people with disabilites. Romanian dog trainer Catalin Cornea answered the challenge and selected Karma to be the 1st stray dog in the world to help people with movement disabilities. Until now, this type of training was made only with certain dogs. Last month, Romanian government issued a law that allows people with disabilities to benefit of assistant dogs, including stray dogs, trained from public funding.

The idea of the project came on the background of a negative media discourse, with a lot of accusations from both parties. Through the power of example, The Good Dog-Catcher managed to transform hostility into love. We are happy our initiative didn’t remain without answer from authorities and we wish to see as many good dog-catchers

Ioana Gheorghita,

Head of Strategy GMP Advertising & project’s initiator

Due to GMP Group’s campaign, the first stray dog trained to assist people with movement disabilities reached, last month, to its new master, Mircea. The Good Dog-Catcher is the 2nd Vier Pfoten Romania’s initiative to use stray dogs to help people with disabilities.

This campaign managed to transform the anonymous dog from the shelter into the helpful stray dog Karma, prepared to assist in a practical manner a person with movement disabilities. Vier Pfoten is handling for over 10 years the animal assisted therapy project – Dogs for people – through which dogs that didn’t had a master, accompagned by trainers and psychologists, are helping children or institutionalized old people. As both projects are showing, the dogs from shelters are representing a huge resource that can be benefited of by society and the recently approved legislation on creating live assistance programs for people with disabilities show that changes are appearing

Anca Negoescu,

Head of Communication Vier Pfoten

The creative that judged the works presented last week and that included The Good Dog-Catcher within Experiential Outdoor category is Richard Gorodecky, Executive Creative Director la Amsterdam Worldwide. BestadsonTV.com is a website where international agencies enter their most creative projects, judged on weekly basis by a renown international creative, which selects the most valuable of them.

The teams working on the campaign included:

  • GMP Advertising: Ioana Gheorghita – Head Of Strategy; Ioana Munteanu – Copywriter; Mihai Gongu – Creative Director; Radu Rebei – Art Director; Raluca Bararu – Freelancer Art Director; Simona Miron – Account Manager; Alexandra Rus – Account Executive; Bianca Negre – Junior Account Executive; Robert Calin – Image Director; Ioana Stangacilovic – A/V Producer
  • Webstyler: Corina Bordeianu – Social Media Director
  • GMP PR: Silvia Jalea – Senior PR Executive
  • Vier Pfoten Romania: Anca Negoescu – Head Of Communication; Victor Chitic – Psychologist; Livia Cimpoeru – Press Officer; Veronica Tulpan – Head Of Programs

Campaign’s movie was directed by Hypno and Goran Mihailov, the editing was handled by Zoran Stangacilovic. The project was made with support from Catalin Cornea, dog trainer.