There is no other industry in the world, which disses its own product. At least not any successful ones. Which is why we have to give up once and for all, campaigns based on how abused our pets are.
Certainly, stories of abuse can be attractive to the fundraising department; they activate people’s compassion and cause them to react, often by opening their wallets. But abuse based campaigns run contrary to our aims to show people that rescue animals are in fact, great family pets. You can’t tell people that the pets you care for have been ‘abused’ on the one hand, but that they should open their homes to one, on the other. ‘Abuse’ in people’s minds is synonymous with behavioural problems and aggression – things most adopters aren’t looking for in their new animal.
The new ‘Second Chances’ campaign from the RSPCA Victoria does an absolutely fantastic job at confirming the public’s suspicions that pets at the RSPCA are faulty.
Every year, thousands of stray, neglected and abused animals arrive at our Victorian shelters in desperate need of a second chance at life.
While rescue groups around the country are working hard to promote the benefits of animal adoption, the RSPCA Victoria have chosen to instead further the myth that shelter pets are damaged. This mixed message of ‘abuse’ and ‘adoption’ is especially disastrous taking place in Victoria, as shelters have just 28 days to find a pet a home before they are legally required to kill it. Adoption is a pet’s only hope.
This emotive approach may be good for raising cash, but it also dooms thousands of pets to death, as people looking for a nice, family pet bypass rescue as an option. If the nicest thing we can say about our pets is that they are the castaways of a cruel society, what motivation does the public have to consider a rescue?
I don’t know why the larger organisations like the RSPCA don’t seem to want to pitch messages designed for their specific target markets.
On the revenue side of their equation, they must believe the sad/abused tales raise more funds as hey have continued with this angle for many years.
On the cost side, however, it should be in their interests to adopt as many animals as possible to good homes, thereby minimising the cost of housing them, maximising adoption fees and reducing the cost of euthanasia. This is also in the animals’ best interests (obviously).
To achieve increased adoption rates, they should be emphasising how great their rescue pets are – but unfortunately they seem to be stuck in “sad/abused” mode (from their revenue raising campaigns) and can’t seem to develop a more positive approach for their adopter target market.
Very unfortunate.
Nothing brings the money in the way a sob story does.
I sometimes get confused. We are the public who apparently are irresponsible and we are the public who need to give them money to help them.
What you say is true though. I once asked someone why they bought purebred cats and didn’t save a life from the pound and I was told that ‘you don’t know where those cats have come from and how they will turn out.’