Episode 91 - Pedigree/MARS Petcare Ad Reviewed by Unilever, Uber and TikTok
In this week’s Advertisers Watching Ads, we’re looking at a MARS Petcare/Pedigree’s innovative approach to matching shelter dogs to new owners. Thanks to our partners Contagious for sourcing the ad.
Created by Colenso BBDO Auckland at the Mars Innovation Hub, streamlining the adoption process for shelters and giving them more time to actually focus on caring for the animals as the app does the difficult part of weeding out who’s best matched with the dogs.
Automated Transcript
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. My name is Tom OIlerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and this is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads and discuss what's good and bad about them. We are brought to you this week as ever by Contagious who helped source innovative ads every week. But before we get to this week's ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Aanandita Datta 0:29
Hi, this is Aanandita. I'm the Global Brand Director for Unilever based on Rotterdam.
Tobi Shonibare 0:33
Yeah, hi. I'm Tobi. I'm based in Chicago. I work for TikTok as a Creative Strategist.
Elizabeth Windram 0:39
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Windram. I lead Global Mobility Marketing for Uber.
Seb Bardin 0:43
Hi, I'm Seb. I'm working at Unilever and I'm leading e-commerce marketing for home care.
Tom Ollerton 0:48
What a panel from all over the place. Elizabeth, thanks for getting up and into the office for 7 A.M. Incredible work. So let's see this week's ad.
What I would like you to do is all vote for how good you thought this was. Three, two, one... A four, a one, a two, and is that a three, Aanandita?
Aanandita Datta 2:52
Yeah.
Tom Ollerton 2:53
A four, a two, one, and a three. That has divided opinion. So this ad was created by Colenso BBDO in Auckland at the Mars Innovation Hub, helping streamline the adoption process for shelters and giving them more time to actually focus on caring for the animals. Elizabeth, this is a really interesting bit of work coming from Mars and Pedigree. This is an app that seemingly solves all kinds of problems. But what's going on here from a, from a marketing context? What was your take on this bit of work?
Elizabeth Windram 3:24
Pedigree has long had the mission of making the world better for pets. They've done quite a lot of work in the adoption space. This year's innovation was an app that they built along with their agency. They took 18 months to build it. It had two goals, you know. One was to help dogs find humans that may be a better fit for them in terms of lifestyle, right? How often do you like to walk? Do you have kids in the home or what is that match going to be? Ultimately with the aim of placing dogs in more appropriate homes so they don't get returned. But then second, they had a really interesting secondary goal, which was around shelter workers. So as it turns out, the app is really about shelter management. And they ended up getting over 50% of shelters in New Zealand to sign up to use the app within the first month of launch. And it really helps the people who are working or volunteering at the shelter list all of the dogs that they've got there, categorize them and make it really, really simple for them to manage the dogs that they're trying to find a home for.
Aanandita Datta 4:26
So, Tobi, I'm interested to know what's your view of what Pedigree's goal is here?
Tobi Shonibare 4:33
I actually really like the fact of how much due diligence is going into their matching people. I'm like, there's not... There's not that much due diligence when it comes to dating apps. I wish there was some comeback when it came to that. I'd love for someone to find a better match for me if things didn't work out. And I think for Pedigree, it's a good thing that they're doing stuff like this, given everything that's happened over the last couple of years. You've seen like people feeling lonely and, you know, feeling isolated. And there's going to be a pandemic of loneliness kind of happening. People, obviously, the adoption of dogs into homes has been, has been higher. But I think a lot of people are doing that, unpopular opinion, for selfish reasons, right? And so Pedigree attaching themselves to this feel good cause which has this very good outcome. So I love to see this kind of feel good content and I'm here for it.
Aanandita Datta 5:20
Pedigree is a brand, really believes in doing good for the dog. They have a huge commitment to a shelter dog. So I think this is something they've done to really, you know, keep to the commitment of taking care of the shelter dogs. And I think Pedigree believes that dogs really bring out the best in humans. And therefore, it's important for us to have the right match. So keeping that philosophy in mind is, you know, they've done that... They've done this whole platform or they've designed this whole platform to help you match with your right dog, which definitely helps bring out the best in you. So I think that way of keeping in mind their beliefs, their purpose, I think it's a beautiful piece of work that they have, you know, created.
Seb Bardin 6:01
When it comes to dog food, you know, even just with the, you know, petcare side, you have a high emotional involvement around this. So I think some people have to also to bear in mind is... I can take this example from, you know, when we go to the vet for instance, and the partnership that they have with those shelters is you will always rely on in terms of recommendation, what type of food to give your, your pet. So I think they are playing also in this case as an advocacy job. So where you know by partnering with the shelters, the shelter will of course recommend Pedigree and so on. But on the other side, I can see this as a data generation work where it's about collecting and understanding more the type of audience for retargeting purpose at the end of the day. So the data that they can get from ad is just rich. So we know who are the owners, what type of pet do they have, you know, registry of a pet. So you can just do an amazing customization work to, you know, to drive incremental sales of pet food.
Tom Ollerton 6:57
Of course, there's a benefit to, to the brands when they do that, whether it's email addresses or selling more product or getting display in, in grocery stores, right? In this case, though, I think they didn't necessarily do a great job of that because I looked at the campaign, I looked at all the headlines, brilliant headlines, "Tinder for Dogs." Right... So it's really catchy. You sort of start with that headline and then back into a really great activation. Got a lot of press, but unfortunately the press was not all about Pedigree or Mars. They were sort of relegated in what I saw to a little bit of a, you know, a subtext view. I didn't get a real Pedigree message. Perhaps that was by design. And they understand that as the market leader, all boats rise, right? So more dogs in homes mean more pet food sold. Therefore they win. And so perhaps the brand didn't need to be front and center. But I would have liked, you know, if I had been the client or the brand person, I would have said, "Where am I in this?" Other than being able to activate in store, perhaps.
Aanandita Datta 8:03
I think, you know, what they did was actually quite intelligent because, you know, the moment they start plastering Pedigree all over, I would have felt a little bit, you know, that the brand is really trying to sell me Pedigree. What they're also doing intelligently is, you know, they understand that they are the market leader and therefore they will get probably more than fair share of the, of the pie if more dogs get adopted, more dogs will feed probably on Pedigree. They get it on recommendation plus a lot of word of mouths from the shelter to the pet owners, number two. And secondly, the data of people who are going to access the, access the, you know, the website.
Tobi Shonibare 8:39
I think there's something cool about them doing it and it not being this kind of big display of like, "Oh, look at this cool thing that we've done." Because obviously, you know, we get to like Women's History Month, we get to Pride Month, we get to Black History Month, right? And then brands often will change their logo to be this big thing to say, "Look how good we are." And I just, I really have a disdain for that kind of really performative stuff. So I'm, I'm glad that they didn't do that. This is a good thing. And it's something that should be more at the forefront. It's a feel good piece content. It does good. I'm surprised I didn't hear about this before it was brought to my attention, before this. So I don't know if maybe that's a miss on their part
Aanandita Datta 9:14
What can brands learn from Pedigree here?
I believe that, you know, if you are really true and honest about your purpose, I think it finds a way to sort of get talked about. I think the fact that they've been consistent on their purpose, which is drive adoption, help the shelter dogs, and then they look at multiple ways of doing it. And I think that's something really, really... Really, really good about what Pedigree does.
Well, I think Mars Petcare are doing something absolutely brilliant here. So congrats on a really inventive bit of work, but we've divided the audience. Tobi, Seb, Elizabeth, Aanandita, thank you so much. We'll see you all next week.
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