“We’ve been working with Westminster Kennel Club for eight years,” says Sarah Pine, director of account services at Glow. “We’re always looking for new ways to excite the social audience.”
Pine is on the ground with her Glow team throughout the entirety of the Westminster event, which this year kicked off on Sunday, where she creates social posts on the winners and canine contenders. The event has been held annually at New York’s Madison Square Garden since its inception in 1877, but it was only eight years ago, with the hiring of Glow, that it began doing social around the event (and throughout the year with efforts like "The Road to Westminster," sponsored by Purina Pro Plan).
“Implementing TikTok into our communications strategy this year is creating a whole new layer of fan involvement,” says Gail Miller Bisher, director of communications for The Westminster Kennel Club.
“By tapping into the trends that Gen Z is pulling the levers on, we’re finding unexpected ways to fold the Westminster Dog Show into culture and reaching an entirely new audience in the process.”
It takes a certain level of dog expertise to handle the social media efforts for Westminster. One mistake, like confusing a wire fox terrier for a smooth fox terrier, could set off a Twitter firestorm among dog show enthusiasts.
Pine knows, for example, that golden retrievers are always favored (though they've never won Best in Show). That proved true when we saw Daniel—who won best of the Sporting group, the first golden retriever to do so since 2006—become this year's fan favorite, although he was eventually bested for Best in Show by Siba the standard poodle. Before the judge awarded top honors to Siba, however, the crowd could be heard in the stands chanting Daniel's name.