Case Study: Organization raises awareness of how a therapy dog can make life easier for children with cancer and their families with a Featurettes distribution

Society Educates New Audiences with Successful Campaign: A Feature News Release Case Study

Posted

COMPANY OVERVIEW

American Humane is committed to ensuring the safety, welfare and well-being of animals. For more than a hundred years, American Humane has been first in promoting the welfare and safety of animals and strengthening the bond between animals and people. It is the first to serve, wherever animals are in need of rescue, shelter, protection or security. Through its innovative leadership initiatives – from its “No Animals Were Harmed®” program in Hollywood to broad-based farm and conservation animal welfare certifications, and to rapid-response rescue and care across the country – American Humane sets the gold standard as the most visionary and effective animal welfare organization in the nation.

CHALLENGE

Following seven years of pioneering research, American Humane revealed the results of its long-awaited “Canines and Childhood Cancer Study,” the first and largest randomized, controlled clinical trial to rigorously measure the effects of animal-assisted therapy (AAT) in the field of pediatric oncology. The results, published in the Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing, show that regular visits from a therapy dog can provide significant psychosocial benefits to families of children undergoing treatment for cancer.

APPROACH

Using a feature detailing the research and data, NAPS aimed to educate the readers about how therapy dogs can play a crucial part in cancer treatment. In “Major Study: Therapy Dogs Can Help Families Of Children With Cancer,” Dr. Robin Ganzert, American Humane’s president and CEO, said “This study is an important step forward in identifying and understanding perhaps underused weapons in the war on childhood cancer.”

 RESULTS

This feature got 1,016 known placements, including 95 in print. This appeared in all 50 states, with a readership of 40 million and on sites with 72 million unique visitors cumulatively. About 50% of placements were in the top 50 markets, 56% were in the most populous third of the states and 36% were in the wealthiest 25% of states. The article was viewed 418 times on our site.

American Humane’s Chief Communications Officer, Mark Stubis, has been very impressed with the media coverage gained from its distribution and has continued to collaborate with NAPS on its campaigns.

NAPS SOLUTIONS

NAPS provides an easy, cost-effective method of getting your story out to nearly every newspaper in the country and thousands of online publications. Instead of just covering the same top publications everyone else in America is trying to get into, you give your top story to practically all of America’s mass media outlets, in a format editors can easily use immediately. We cover America’s 10,000 newspapers with over 200 million in cumulative circulation, about 167 million of which are in the weekly community newspapers.