PetRescue and DDB Turn Instagram Into an Adoption Engine
PetMe is a 2019 digital campaign created by DDB Sydney for Australian pet adoption platform PetRescue, which used artificial intelligence to analyse Instagram dog photographs and connect users with rescue dogs sharing similar breed, size, coat, and temperament characteristics from shelters across Australia.
Launched in February 2019, PetMe operated through a deceptively simple social mechanic. Users posted a photograph of a dog on Instagram alongside the hashtag #PetMe. An AI-powered image recognition system then analysed the photograph, cross-referencing it against a database of more than 200 dog breeds, and replied in the comments with a direct link to a comparable rescue dog available for adoption through PetRescue. The database covered more than 90,000 available rescue dogs nationwide, according to The Drum, making the matching pool one of the most comprehensive ever assembled for an Australian adoption campaign.
The campaign's objective was straightforward: convert existing online behaviour into social good. Australians were already spending considerable time liking and sharing dog photographs on Instagram. PetMe intercepted that behaviour at the moment of engagement and redirected it toward animal rescue. Rather than asking the public to change their habits, DDB Sydney designed a system that worked within those habits, meeting dog lovers exactly where they already were. By 2019, PetRescue had facilitated a cumulative total of 600,000 pet adoptions since its founding, according to Impact Petrescue, and PetMe represented the organisation's most technologically ambitious effort to accelerate that figure. The campaign earned a Clapboard Score of 73 out of 100.
PetRescue identified a clear behavioural gap in the Australian pet adoption landscape. Australians were demonstrably enthusiastic about dogs on social media, yet rescue shelters continued to face occupancy pressure. The strategic challenge for DDB Sydney was not to generate new affection for dogs — that affection already existed in abundance — but to create a frictionless pathway from passive admiration to active adoption consideration.
The choice of Instagram as the campaign's primary platform was deliberate and data-informed. Instagram's visual format made it the dominant channel for dog-related content in Australia, and its comment functionality provided the technical infrastructure through which PetMe's AI could respond in real time. Competitors in the broader animal welfare space, including the RSPCA Australia and Petbarn's adoption initiatives, had historically relied on passive digital listings and partner website placements to drive adoption enquiries. PetMe's interactive, AI-powered approach represented a meaningful departure from that category norm, shifting the model from destination-based browsing to ambient social interception.
Guilherme Machado, Creative Copywriter at DDB Sydney, described the campaign as using existing online behaviour — the act of liking and sharing dog images — to create social good, as documented by Clapboard. The strategic elegance lay in zero behaviour change being required from the user. PetRescue's own impact reporting at impact.petrescue.com.au noted the organisation had facilitated 600,000 cumulative adoptions by 2019, establishing a credible platform from which a technology-led campaign could extend reach. PetMe marked a clear pivot from the organisation's earlier promotional approach, which had leaned on Facebook, partner websites, and a documented Pedigree partnership in 2014, toward a fully interactive, machine-learning-driven social experience.
DDB Sydney built PetMe around a machine learning system capable of analysing dog photographs with enough precision to identify breed characteristics, coat type, physical size, and temperament indicators from a single Instagram image. The system then matched those characteristics against a live database of rescue dogs available through PetRescue's national network, returning a personalised adoption link as a comment on the user's post — in near real time.
Alex Newman, Senior Art Director at DDB Sydney, noted that influencers who already owned rescue dogs were recruited to post images using the #PetMe hashtag, seeding the campaign with high-reach, credible content from the outset, as documented by Clapboard. This influencer layer served a dual purpose: it demonstrated that rescue dogs could be Instagram-worthy subjects in their own right, and it generated the initial wave of hashtag usage needed to give the AI system visible social traction. Ben Welsh served as Chief Creative Officer at DDB Sydney on the campaign, according to Clapboard.
The production of PetMe was not without technical complication. Guilherme Machado reported that Instagram's enforcement of its bot policy during the campaign's development period required the team to make strategic changes to the method by which the AI system posted its automated comments, as documented by Clapboard. That constraint forced the team to refine the posting architecture, ultimately producing a more robust system. The campaign's core database covered more than 200 dog breeds and was cross-referenced against more than 90,000 rescue dogs available across Australia, according to The Drum, giving the matching engine both the breadth and the depth necessary to return meaningful, individualised results at scale. Production credits beyond Newman, Machado, and Welsh are not fully documented in publicly available sources.
No independently verified performance data for PetMe is publicly available in primary campaign documentation. The most significant figure in circulation is reported by The Drum, which stated that PetRescue and DDB claimed the campaign contributed to 14,000 adoptions during the six months preceding February 20, 2019. The Drum published this figure on that date, and it remains the primary quantitative claim associated with PetMe, though it has not been confirmed in primary campaign materials reviewed by Clapboard.
Structurally, PetMe demonstrates the characteristics of a campaign built for sustained conversion rather than short-term awareness. The hashtag mechanic created an always-on adoption engine: every new #PetMe post triggered a fresh AI response, meaning the system generated adoption opportunities continuously without additional media spend. The influencer seeding strategy amplified reach through earned social distribution, while the specificity of the AI matching — drawing on a database of more than 200 breeds and more than 90,000 available rescue dogs nationally, according to The Drum — gave each interaction genuine utility rather than generic redirection.
PetRescue's broader adoption activity in the same period offers useful contextual data. According to impact.petrescue.com.au, the organisation's National Pet Adoption Day in 2019, run in partnership with PETstock, resulted in 650 rescue pets finding homes on the event day alone — 507 cats and 159 dogs — with more than 400 additional adoptions recorded across February, bringing the in-store total above 1,000. PetMe operated in parallel with these offline efforts, suggesting that the organisation's 2019 adoption activity represented a coordinated multi-channel push rather than a single campaign moment. The Clapboard Score for PetMe is 73 out of 100.
PetMe is a 2019 digital campaign created by DDB Sydney for PetRescue in Australia. It used AI image recognition to analyse Instagram dog photographs posted with the hashtag #PetMe and automatically replied with a link to a comparable rescue dog available for adoption from PetRescue's national shelter network.
Users posted a dog photo on Instagram with the hashtag #PetMe. An AI system then analysed the image for breed, size, coat, and physical characteristics, cross-referenced those traits against a database of more than 90,000 rescue dogs across Australia, according to The Drum, and posted a personalised adoption link in the comments.
DDB Sydney created PetMe for PetRescue. The campaign team included Ben Welsh as Chief Creative Officer, Alex Newman as Senior Art Director, and Guilherme Machado as Creative Copywriter, according to Clapboard. The campaign launched in Australia in February 2019 and represented PetRescue's most technology-driven adoption initiative to date.
The PetMe AI system covered more than 200 dog breeds, according to The Drum. It matched Instagram photographs against a database of more than 90,000 rescue dogs available across Australia, analysing breed, temperament, size, and coat characteristics to return a relevant adoption link for each user who posted with the #PetMe hashtag.
No independently verified primary data for PetMe is publicly available. The Drum reported that PetRescue and DDB claimed the campaign contributed to 14,000 adoptions in the six months preceding February 2019. That figure has not been confirmed in primary campaign documentation reviewed by Clapboard. The campaign received a Clapboard Score of 73 out of 100.
DDB Sydney selected Instagram because it was already the dominant platform for dog-related visual content in Australia. Rather than asking users to change their behaviour, PetMe intercepted the existing habit of posting and sharing dog photographs and redirected that engagement toward animal rescue, using the platform's comment functionality to deliver personalised adoption links at scale.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
