Mans' Best Friend

My family is the definition of dog lovers. To us dogs are not just animals they are apart of our family. So today, instead of talking about my pride for Atlanta's prominence in the business world, I would like to share a campaign that I found touching and extremely creative. Purina is premium dog-food maker, and is actually the brand of food that I feed to my dogs. Recently Purina decided to launch a new marketing campaign to try and raise their brand awareness in hopes of  beating out their biggest competitor Pedigree, another top dog food brand. The Westminster Dog Show is the most prestigious dog competition in America, and is watched all over the nation by animal lovers. Pedigree has been the sponsor of the event for 24 years; this opportunity has allowed them to increase their brand awareness greatly over the years. Because they are sponsors for the event, they receive repeated brand and ad exposure throughout the tournament, which has helped them increase their product name.Purina was determined to become the new sponsor of The Westminster Dog Show in hopes of increasing their brand awareness, but they knew it would be a challenge. Purina realized that in order to become the new sponsor of the event, they needed to create a new and different campaign.

Purina's current commercials usually showed champion show dogs competing in dogs shows and described how champion show dogs only eat Purinia dog food. They were trying to send a message that Purina is for winners and that if your dog eats Purina, they can be like champion show dogs. The problem with this campaign is that it only shows the benefits of eating Purina and doesn't connect and give meaning to people's lives. Purina realized they needed to change their tactics if they wanted to take the top spot from Pedigree.

Purina decided that they needed not to focus on show dogs and dog shows, but instead try to connect with people on a broader scale. Most of the population doesn't have a champion show dog, so only showing show dogs in commercials wasn't a good way to connect with the average dog lover. This commercial was created by Purina to try and change their image.

 

The campaign is called "Inside Every Good Dog Is a Great Dog." The commercial depicts average dogs, of all different shapes and sizes, being loveable while doing great things. The reason they wanted to show dogs of all different types of breeds was so that pet owners would view them as normal dogs, and be able to relate to them in their own lives. I think the soundtrack to the ad went along perfectly with the message Purina was trying to send. Toward the beginning of the song, the dogs are shown doing simple tasks such as napping, playing with a tennis ball and just being silly. Eventually the music picks up and the lyrics start to urge listeners to strive for greatness, the dogs follow and the ads starts to show police dogs and rescue dogs doing great things. All the positive canine imagery, and especially the behavioral progression throughout the video evokes their new tagline. The key to this commercial is that it connects emotionally with the audience and allows pet owners to picture their dog in the commercial. These new ad does a great job celebrating average dogs; unlike the old campaigns that promoted champion purebreds. The new ad sends the message that Purina is the key ingredient for pet owners to uncover greatness in their dogs. 

This commercial was a huge success. People absolutely loved it. Because of this commercial, Purina became the new sponsor of The Westminster Dog Show. Pedigree had formally been the sponsor of the dog show for 24 years, but couldn't compete with the overwhelmingly positive response from Purina's new campaign.  Ever since the commercial launched their brand awareness has increased greatly and people have really made a connection with the brand.

Recapping on what I discussed today:

What was the problem?

  

Purina wants to raise their brand awareness in hopes of  beating out their biggest competitor Pedigree. Pedigree has been the sponsor for The Westminster Dog Show for 24 years and Purina was to take the top spot from them.

What is the advertising objective?

Create a new campaign that connects emotionally with pet owners so Purina can become the new sponsor 

for The Westminster Dog Show. The sponsorship will help them build their brand awareness. 

Who is the target market?

The target audience are people who are dog lovers of those who don't necessarily have a show dog. Most people who watch The Westminster Dog Show are not show dog owners.

What is the SMP?

"Inside Every Good Dog Is a Great Dog."

Purina learned from the problem they had with their previous campaign, and was was able to turn their brand into something great and knock out the competition. Purina did a great job evoking the special relationship people have with our dogs and connecting with them emotionally.