The Short Version

• Jack London Square partnered with Canine Companions to host the Bay Area’s 2024 DogFest, spotlighting service dogs and accessibility.
• The month-long campaign combined photo activations, puppy sponsorships, social media, retailer tie-ins and a dog-friendly festival.
• Balancing fun with education helped the event resonate with the community and drive fundraising beyond expectations.
• Results included 115M impressions, $18,240 raised (265% of the goal), 1,288 new email addresses and a traffic increase of 85% on the culminating event day.
• The effort earned CIM Group Gold in the 2025 ICSC MAXI Awards and offered takeaways for blending digital and on-site marketing.

Turning Community Campaigns Into Cause-Driven Marketing

Every year, Oakland, California’s Jack London Square waterfront mixed-use district runs a campaign to engage the public while raising funds and awareness around important issues like Alzheimer’s disease and breast cancer.

As Heath McCue — senior director of retail marketing at CIM Group, which owns the property — began planning new programming for Jack London Square, one statistic stood out: Nearly 19% of residents in Alameda County, where Jack London Square is located, live with a disability. “I thought maybe 10 or 11%,” he said. “I was surprised it was that high.”

That number stayed with him. In a neighborhood known for its lively community, historical charm and socioeconomic diversity, McCue saw an opportunity to raise awareness about accessibility, support a meaningful cause and bring people together around something joyful.

Along the way, he and his team learned that many people in the county with disabilities could not afford service dogs. They decided to highlight Canine Companions, a nonprofit headquartered in Santa Rosa, California that provides trained service dogs for free. Families and individuals train with their dogs on-site at a Canine Companions training center, an intensive and inspiring experience. “These dogs aren’t just pets,” McCue said. “They give people independence, confidence and a chance to live fuller lives.”

Each year, Canine Companions hosts DogFest, a month-long series of events held nationwide in conjunction with National Service Dog Month in September to raise awareness and support for its mission. In 2024, Jack London Square partnered with the nonprofit to present the Bay Area DogFest, celebrating service dogs and their transformative impact while generating funds to offset the significant costs of training and placement. The campaign culminated in a day-long festival in one of the center’s plazas, an overall effort that earned CIM Group Gold in the 2025 ICSC MAXI Awards Gold.

Harnessing DogFest’s Appeal To Drive Community Engagement and Fundraising

“All the people that live around the area bring their pets over to Jack London Square, and honestly, I think more people [in the vicinity] have pets than they do kids,” said McCue. Service dogs offered a way for the property to engage residents, educate the public and fundraise at the same time, and he believed the cause would resonate with the numerous dog owners in the area.

MORE FROM C+CT: Retail Centers Go Dog-Friendly and Shoppers Are Following

Having chosen a cause for the property’s annual community-engagement initiative, McCue and his team turned their attention to designing an engaging, month-long campaign leading up to a culminating day-long festival, a timeline which had proven to be successful before. “When you run a program over several weeks, it’s like a marathon, but [a longer period of time] is better for building awareness and engagement.”

The CIM DogFest program included numerous ways for people to participate:

• photo studio: Donors could snap pictures in the center’s whimsical selfie studio.
• puppy sponsorships: To create a personal connection to the cause, the campaign encouraged visitors to sponsor two puppies just starting their service dog training and then follow the dogs’ journeys.
• social and digital campaigns: Posts combined cute dog content from puppies training at the Santa Rosa Canine Companions facilities, including information about DogFest and the opportunity to help contribute to the cost of the puppies’ training.
• retailer involvement: Shops at Jack London Square promoted the event with themed specials and displayed QR codes to encourage donations.
• closing festival: A weekend event featured service dog demonstrations, vendor booths and a costume contest, giving visitors the chance to see the dogs in action and celebrate the community’s support.

“It was important to balance fun and education,” McCue said. “People got to enjoy it while also learning about what these dogs do.”

Managing the Challenges of a Month-Long Campaign

Weeks-long initiatives prove valuable, but they also present hurdles. “A program that lasts weeks requires constant attention: refreshing signage, keeping up the momentum and energy,” McCue said.

Even the closing festival day had its own complexities. With a few hundred dogs on-site, maintenance crews stayed busy. “Let’s just say they had a lot of cleaning to do,” McCue said. “They had to make sure the grounds were safe: free from food scraps or anything else that might cause trouble.”

Content creation was another challenge. The team had only one day to film at Canine Companions, which meant limited material to last a month. “You can’t make the dogs do what you want, and we couldn’t interrupt their training schedule,” McCue explained. While the videos they captured were effective, he wished they’d had more content to sustain engagement throughout the month.

Blending Digital Campaigns With On-Site Marketing for Maximum Reach

McCue credited the campaign’s success to a mix of old and new strategies. “I’ve been in the business a long time,” he said. “I love digital and it’s so much more cost effective, but at the end of the day, a 22- by 28-[inch] poster placed in the right spot is just as effective now as it was 20 years ago. When people come to a shopping center or an entertainment complex, they still look for those things to figure out what’s going on if they’re not glued to their phones.”

Providing QR codes gave visitors a convenient way to donate. “During the pandemic, QR codes caught on with every age group,” McCue noted. “The technology is much easier now. You can use your camera instead of a separate app to scan codes. It makes it easier to engage.”

On social media, the content balanced heartwarming moments with key facts. “We wanted people to see the little puppies playing,” McCue said, “but we were also giving stats, too. It was a combination of cuteness and useful information.” He reflected: “It turned out to be even more successful than we thought.”

DogFest Delivers Results: Traffic, Sales and Community Impact

By the numbers, Jack London Square’s DogFest was a success: 115 million impressions from marketing and PR efforts; $18,240 raised for Canine Companions, representing 265% of the fundraising goal; and more than 1,288 new customer email addresses captured for the property. On event day, traffic there soared 85% over the same day the previous year and sales at retailers rose between 10% and 45% over the same day the previous month.

But for McCue, the experiences mattered just as much. For a young boy who uses a wheelchair, breathing machine and a service dog, the closing festival was a big deal, McCue said. “His parents told us he really wanted to be part of the event. ... You could see how much it meant to him to be included. I think being seen, being part of it, was a big part of the experience for him.”

Marketing Takeaways From Jack London Square’s DogFest

For Jack London Square, DogFest wasn’t just about fundraising or a marketing campaign. It was about creating connections, highlighting the work of service dogs and showing the community that everyone deserves to be seen.

Looking back, McCue would have made one change: “I probably would have done a few more videos.” Otherwise, he considers the campaign a model for future programming.

His advice for other centers: “Engage your community. People have so many choices online now. If you want them to visit a physical location, you have to give them a reason beyond just the stores or restaurants.”