The challenge
Petco plays a crucial role in South Africa’s waste management economy — fulfilling extended producer responsibility (EPR) for post-consumer packaging on behalf of some of the country’s biggest brands. Despite its vital work, the organisation faced a major hurdle: outside its immediate membership base, it was largely unknown.
With limited media uptake and no direct-to-consumer communication channels in place, Petco struggled to raise awareness among households, reclaimers, and industry stakeholders. Its message — often complex and policy-heavy — needed to be reshaped for clarity, relevance, and resonance.
The solution
GNL was initially brought on for regional PR support in 2017. But after demonstrating a nuanced understanding of Petco’s mission and media landscape, we were awarded the full national PR communications portfolio. From 2019, we introduced a targeted, data-driven strategy that merged PR, email marketing, stakeholder segmentation, and lead generation — helping Petco build credibility across audiences and channels.
Key elements of the strategy:
- Newsworthy media campaigns, aligned with Petco’s most impactful grassroots or member stories
- Email newsletters, tailored to three distinct groups: households, reclaimers/small businesses, and stakeholders
- Lead generation campaigns via Meta platforms, paired with custom-designed signup pages and a POPI-compliant data capture flow
- Quarterly list cleansing, ensuring a highly engaged subscriber base
- Content repurposing for web and LinkedIn, reinforcing thought leadership and member visibility and supporting SEO
execution
- Monthly newsletters to households; bi-monthly sends to stakeholders and reclaimers
- An email re-send strategy per campaign to increase open rates across all subscriber segments
- MailerLite was used for deployment, analytics and segmentation
- Meta ads drove initial list growth, achieving a cost-per-lead of R3 (vs. the global NPO average of ~R550)
Our story selection and media pitching strategy also helped reposition Petco’s image — from technical industry body to accessible sustainability thought leader.
The results
Most importantly, this campaign strategy continues to bolster Petco’s relevance and visibility — both among its stakeholders and the public.
41,632
total email subscribers as of Q1 2025 (starting from zero in 2019)
41.9%
Stakeholder newsletters
42.6%
Household newsletters
37.8%
Reclaimer newsletters
100:1 and more
ROI achieved across PR campaigns (based on earned media value)
R2-million+
in media coverage generated by a single standout story in 2023 profiling wastepreneur Nokubonga — featured in Sunday Times, Rapport, and Netwerk24
When a mutual friend connected me to GNL for a local event I needed PR help with, I was pleasantly surprised with not only their earnest professionalism, but their incredibly efficient turnaround and super-friendly support.
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