Companies woo animal social media stars

“I believe in you!”

As Sneakers, a fluffy brown and white corgi, trudged awkwardly up the Muni stairs, a stranger shouted unsolicited encouragement.

Sneakers is used to turning heads. As she trotted down Market Street on a recent walk, passersby cooed, “Oh my god, that dog is so cute!” A man even tried to flirt with her, holding out his hand in hopes of a lick.

Advertisers, it turns out, believe in Sneakers, too, and they’re holding out more than a hand to woo her. That’s because Sneakers is not just any cute San Francisco dog. She’s so popular that companies pay her to endorse their products. A sponsored post on Instagram to Sneakers’ nearly 100,000 followers could fetch up to $1,000.

“Corgis are so popular on the Internet,” said Connie Wu, Sneakers’ owner. “There are all these funny memes and videos. Somehow she just attracted an audience.”

In the era of social media, animals are sometimes more in demand than humans. Some pets with strong followings on sites like Instagram and Facebook are getting paid to pose with branded products like couches and high chairs, pulling in anywhere from $1,500 to $10,000 per post, according to HelloSociety, a Santa Monica social media marketing firm that has a special division called Wag Society that links popular animals with sponsorship deals.

“Animals tend to get tremendously more engagement than their human counterparts,” said Kyla Brennan, HelloSociety’s CEO. When people see a photo of a cute animal, in other words, they’re more likely to comment or share it with friends.

Pets also aren’t as scandal-prone as humans.

“In general, they are safer than spokespeople,” said Ira Kalb, an assistant professor of clinical marketing at the University of Southern California. “They don’t take vacation. They don’t get in trouble. They don’t have sex with people that they are not supposed to.”

Sneakers, named after her white paws that look like shoes, didn’t expect to be famous. Her parents (as Wu and her husband call themselves) just enjoyed taking photos of her and didn’t want to inundate their friends with too many corgi shots. So they gave Sneakers her own Instagram account. Little did they know the depth of the demand for cute corgi photos at scenic locales and wearing funny costumes.

Three months after the account opened, Sneakers landed her first partnership deal with BarkBox, a company that lets people pay for monthly packages containing dog treats and toys. Since then, her endorsements and partnerships have grown to two dozen brands, including watchmaker Daniel Wellington and pet food maker Purina. Sometimes sponsorships result in free product, or a fee that can range from $50 to $1,000, Wu said.

“It’s not a formal discipline, taking pictures of your dog and putting them on social media, but kind of like other creative disciplines ... it’s hard to know how much to charge,” said Wu, a content strategist who used Google to figure it out. Last month, Sneakers became a client of the Dog Agency, which represents animals in contract negotiations.

Companies that have worked with animals with large followings say they have benefited from the animal partnerships. Virgin America signed Boo, a popular Bay Area Pomeranian, as an animal liaison for its brand to help educate fliers about its pet policy. A video featuring Boo is the third most watched video for the airline, with nearly 600,000 views on YouTube, said Abby Lunardini, Virgin America’s vice president of brand marketing and communications.

“You’ve seen him, right? Pretty adorable,” said Lunardini of Boo, who generates a collective “Awww” when people see him walking through airports. “He is a fun reminder that travel can be a fun experience.”

When Boo posted on Facebook in 2013 about a Virgin America program that donates some of its revenue from fare sales to the City of San Francisco Animal Care and Control, it pushed an overwhelming amount of traffic to the company’s Facebook page, she added.

Boo and his owner did not return a request for comment.

Clorox has also partnered with animal influencers on social media. The Oakland cleaning products company recruited a group of popular dogs on Instagram, including Harlow the Weimaraner, Blox the bulldog and Hambone the corgi, to pose in photos next to Clorox dust wipes and raise awareness for Adopt-A-Dog month in October. The result was nearly 3.5 million impressions, said Colleen Stauffer, a digital and social strategy group manager at Clorox.

“We think animals are a good hook to engage people,” Stauffer said. “It’s hard to break through the clutter.”

Kalb of USC cautions that consumers may not always correlate cute pictures of popular animals with buying products. When a celebrity — animal or human — pitches numerous brands at once, often consumers will just remember the celebrity and not the particular brands, he said.

Also problematic is if the celebrity tries to sell a product that falls outside his or her area of expertise, Kalb said. That doesn’t bode well for dogs peddling furniture rather than dog food, for example.

“Since the dog is not an expert user of the product, it’s not going to be effective,” he said.

Still, some marketing firms are eager to take on popular animals as clients and link them to companies looking for new ways to advertise their product. The firms generally take a cut of the deal.

Loni Edwards started the Dog Agency, after friends started asking her for advice on how much they should negotiate in contracts for their popular pets. Edwards, a Harvard Law School graduate and owner of a French bulldog and Internet celebrity named Chloe, found her calling. She already has a list of clients including Sneakers and Dougie, an Albany shih tzu. “It was perfect for what I love and what I’m good at,” Edwards said.

The owners of popular animals online say they carefully choose which brands they want their creatures to represent. Wu said she turned down an opportunity for Sneakers to advertise T-shirts because she looked on the company’s website and saw how some shirts were saucy and featured the B-word, whereas Sneakers is “family friendly.”

Attorney Anita Rotenberg said she also limits the sponsorships for Dougie, who has 546,000 followers on Instagram. Dougie mostly endorses products tied to dogs.

Unsurprisingly, despite their fame, the animals behave just like any other pet. The owners of both Sneakers and Dougie say the money isn’t enough for them to quit their day jobs. But the extra cash does help with Sneakers’ vet bills and in Dougie’s case, a college fund for Rotenberg’s kids.

“He stays humble,” Rotenberg said of Dougie. “He doesn’t rub it in.”