A Nutty Recap of How BARK Celebrates Squirrel Appreciation Day

In a world where brands celebrate every made up holiday from National Donut Day to World Mosquito Day, the team here at BARK thought it would be hilarious to go all in on a more obscure holiday: Squirrel Appreciation Day. For the last 4 years, the humans at BARK inadvertently do something to anger the squirrels right before the big holiday. In their rage, the squirrels always take over the BARK social media on January 21st and wreak rude, anarchist havoc on customers and followers.  This year we upped the ante in a big way where we made these cute new dog sweatshirts. These limited-edition, middle finger to the squirrels are available as a gift-with-purchase on any new BarkBox or Super Chewer. (Active customers can add them to their next box on their account page.)  We launched our Anti-Squirrel-Squirrel Club (A.S.S. Club) on January 19th with this video and series of social ads:

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 As a result of these ads, naturally the squirrels were enraged and on 1/21, they took over our social media accounts.   This year the squirrels also displayed a surprising talent with pyrotechnics.

@barkbox BARKBOX SUCKS🖕F@#% YOU FARTBOX #barkboxsucks #antisquirrelsquirrelclub ♬ original sound - Pierce Westbrook

As the day went on, customers and squirrel enthusiasts responded in a variety of funny ways... 

I am *dying* at today’s squirrel hack of @barkbox’s social accounts. Spit-take at their Twitter bio 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/51WEkeM2y1

— Ann Handley (@MarketingProfs) January 21, 2022

And in the end we got the BARK social media back, and the dogs still have an awesome club to celebrate the mutual distrust of squirrels. 

@hyperfocuspod @barkbox i love you. #greenscreen #dogsofttiktok #barkbox #fyp #marketing ♬ original sound - Hyperfocus Pod