National Pet Month unveils Pet Care Aware

Pet Care Aware is a new initiative to bring pet professionals and pet friendly organisations together to help spread the responsible pet care message throughout the year.

This year’s National Pet Month campaign takes place from April 1 - May 7, encouraging pet fans to learn and talk about responsible pet care and raise money for their favourite UK pet charities.

Now, for the first time, alongside NPM, businesses and organisations are being asked to get behind Pet Care Aware – a new initiative allowing the responsible pet care message to carry on more visibly 24/7, 365 days a year, and beyond the charity’s April campaign month.

NPM has a thriving community of more than 100,000 pet lovers on social media through its family of online channels. On Facebook, for instance, National Pet Month, Park Bench and Scratching Post stay live and regularly updated throughout the year.

The Pet Care Aware brand allows pet-friendly businesses and organisations to carry the supporter logo and have their listing on the NPM/Pet Care Aware website, and also allows larger businesses to target pet fans with their messages through sponsorship packages all year round. Proceeds, of course, go towards supporting and developing NPM’s charity aims.

NPM Chairman Michael Bellingham explains: “National Pet Month is a well-known charity which has been encouraging UK pet fans to raise money for UK pet charities for nearly 30 years, but it has always been about so much more than the campaign month of April. Pet Care Aware allows us to be spreading good pet care messages throughout the year and join with fellow pet friendly organisations to build a pet friendly community to be proud of.”

If you’re in business and would like to support the educational charity aims of NPM, you can join the Pet Care Aware family for just £250. For this you’ll benefit from a year’s listing on NPM’s website with a live link to your website, as well as an exclusive electronic supporter badge for your online channels and a window sticker for your premises.

For those Pet Care Aware family members with a bigger budget you can book bespoke campaigns, from a week upwards, with each one enabling you to put your key messages directly in front of 100,000+ social media followers across Facebook and Twitter. Campaigns can even be built to target dog or cat owners specifically through our engaged Facebook communities.

Michael adds: “As an educational charity we spend many hours talking to schools, businesses, fellow charities and other organisations about the importance of responsible pet care, using our Top 10 Tips for responsible pet ownership as a great guide to help the country’s pets stay happy and healthy.

“However, there is still a fair amount of misunderstanding about NPM in that we are an umbrella charity that helps showcase other UK pet charities and our work goes on throughout the year. Pet Care Aware offers us the chance to create a wonderful new family of pet care supporters in the veterinary profession and business community, all with the same key aims – to ensure our country’s pets are receiving the very best care possible.

“At a time when our news channels are all too often filled with dreadful stories of pet deprivation and abuse, it’s more important than ever for us to come together as a community of pet lovers to share the responsible pet care message and declare we are Pet Care Aware. We hope you will join us.”

The only month that can’t be sponsored as part of Pet Care Aware is April, which is reserved for National Pet Month sponsors.

For those interested in sponsoring National Pet Month, campaigns start from as little as £500 up to top line sponsorship of £25,000. Once again, this provides an opportunity to get your message in front of NPM’s social media through daily posts, guest blogs and a variety of tailored press campaigns.

NPM is keen to talk to any businesses who would be interested in becoming a National Pet Month sponsor for this year’s campaign or join the Pet Care Aware community. Please email asha@turquoisetiger.co.uk

Outside of April, Pet Care Aware sponsors can take anything from a week’s campaign upwards, and each one can be bespoke to suit - we can even build your campaign to target dog or cat owners.

Pet Care Aware - because we care about pets all year round.