RSPCA Victoria Rethink Roaming

In Australia, each roaming pet cat kills an average of 110 native animals annually. Roaming cats face higher risks of injury, disease and death, living half as long as those kept at home. RSPCA Victoria encourages responsible cat ownership and containment in a way that safeguards cat welfare. The challenge: Shift the behaviour of owners who let their cats roam by questioning the belief that roaming benefits cat welfare. Past messaging on environmental impact or council curfews was ineffective, so the campaign instead focuses on the consequences of these behaviours.

The key insights into why owners let cats roam: they don’t wander far, they enjoy being outside, and they seek stimulation. The campaign grabs attention and provides a personalised approach to support change. Highlighting the risk of an early death produced the strongest engagement response. The campaign juxtaposes common owner beliefs with the consequences of allowing cats to roam. Social assets targeted female owners aged 35+ with location-specific content and posters were displayed in vet clinics. The website combines location, hours roamed, and sex, to present contextual risks on the map and supports behavioural change, through relevant resources and programs.

For every owner that chooses to contain their cat day and night, an average of 110 native animals are saved each year and their cat's life expectancy is doubled. This campaign will contribute to reducing the 30,000 cats that are impounded annually in Victoria, lowering the $15.5 million in care costs per year, and the number of cats euthanised. The campaigns' secondary objective is to increase the number of desexed cats to help reduce semi-owned and feral cat populations and encourage all Victorian councils to enact a 24/7 cat curfew.

Owners can enter their location, how many hours their cat roams day and night and their cat's sex to see contextual risks in their area. A custom implementation using the Google Maps SDK, and Google Places API highlights risks around the cat's home, showing the common radius based on known statistics of how far male and female cats roam. Resources and programs are personalised to data entered by owners in the risk search, highlighting council initiatives, RSPCA resources and discount services. To reduce friction and give users an immediate results, pre-set defaults show risks, resources and tools without the need to enter an address. Users can then choose to enter their location to see more personalised information. Automatic geolocation was avoided as many users would not be at ‘home’ when using the website, providing irrelevant results. As a not for profit organisation the campaign had to provide RSPCA Victoria maximum impact for a smaller budget. The primary objective is on behavioural change, with a secondary focus of encouraging responsible pet ownership through free or low cost microchipping, desexing and vaccination. The website was built as a React application and meets WCAG AA accessibility.