Sniffers Pet Care
Sniffers is one of the UK’s fastest-growing privately-owned pet treat companies. Based on 40 years’ experience in the trade, Sniffers has grown from a small family-owned distribution business to become a leading provider of dog treats with a focus on ethically sourced and manufactured produce.
100
Percent key message delivery across all coverage
4
Proactive investor conversations
1
Successful investment deal
The Brief
Sniffers Pet Care is an award-winning business with over 40 years of experience in the pet industry across both retail and distribution. Based in Elland, West Yorkshire, the family-owned organisation develops a range of high-quality pet treat products, including its own range of Buffalo Dog Treats.
The business required sustained and strategic brand-building to support its ambitious growth plans and raise awareness of the firm among prospective investors. This included building the personal profile of Simon Brown, Director of the business and allowing his parents – the business’ founders – to exit and retire.
Approach
To build brand awareness and raise the media profile of Sniffers, we created compelling and engaging content that was targeted to the key pet industry publications we knew potential investors would be reading. This included positive news stories about the growth of the business, significant contract wins and supplier partnerships. We included quotes from Simon, making his investment strategy and expansion ambitions clear, to generate reverse enquiries from investors.
To build Simon’s profile, we secured personal profiling opportunities in leading media titles, which conveyed what he had done to grow the business to its current size, and his plans for the future.
This was supplemented with media relations activity including officially launching Buffalo Dog Treats, reacting to the news agenda and securing opinion pieces.
We also drafted a number of award entries for both Simon as a business leader, and the business itself, which saw Simon included in Yorkshire Business Insider’s 42 under 42 cohort.
By securing regular media coverage, it meant that Sniffers came up on internet searches, acting as a form of third-party validation.
Results
Faith worked with Sniffers over a 12-month period to deliver consistent high-quality and targeted media coverage. While we can talk about the reach of coverage and titles we achieved coverage in, the best testament to the success of the campaign is the fact that Simon secured the third-party investment he was looking for. He has now embarked on the next chapter of Sniffers’ growth with a venture capitalist on board.
Speaking about how PR helped his aims, Simon says: “The increased brand awareness generated by Faith helped us achieve our ultimate goal of finding a suitable partner to invest in Sniffers and accelerate the business’s growth. This in turn allowed my parents to exit the business.
“By raising our profile, we attracted positive and proactive engagement from the market and were able to have detailed conversations with three to four potential investors. This resulted in a deal and continued growth for the business, bringing on board national retailers. We have gone from a trial for Buffalo Dog Treats in 50 Pets at Home stores, to a full estate roll-out planned for late 2022.
“The investment secured will allow us to fulfil our ambitious growth plans more aggressively and we are exited as to what the future holds.”
