TBWA continues its battle against homecooked food for Pedigree

TBWA\ has rolled out a campaign for Pedigree, a packaged dog food brand, to break the belief that what is good for humans should be good for dogs too.

“The objective of the campaign is to shake the dog owner out of this autopilot and start questioning the belief that human food is good enough for dogs,” said Nirmalya Sen, COO – North, TBWA\India.

The film speaks to the ‘mom’ of the dog (the person who takes care of the dog’s feeding and nutrition needs irrespective of gender); in this case a little girl. “We needed a password into an otherwise closed mind. What better password into any mom’s head than growth? What helped was dogs grow much faster than humans. A fact that no dog owner could refute,” added Sen.

 

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The film uses a dog’s faster growth to establish the need for ‘different food’. And then goes on to explain how Pedigree, food designed especially for dogs, works better than home cooked food because of the simple reason that the dog digests Pedigree with ease and perfectly, ensuring the dog benefits from all the nutrients in the food. A fact that any dog owner would be able to ‘see’ in the dog’s energy levels and its shiny coat.  

“The biggest creative challenge was to deliver a totally rational message in a manner that fit into Pedigree's world of love for dogs. People in India just don't believe that dogs need a different diet than humans. It is a very deep rooted and age-old belief and it's very difficult to shake off. To make them unlearn, we narrated a very real and poignant story of friendship between a little girl and her dog.  She soon discovers her dog is different and has grown 'so big, so fast' while she is still the same. Eventually she understands the difference lies in the dog's stomach and her dog is fed on food that is specially designed keeping the dog's digestive system in mind,” said Anirban Sen, executive creative director – North and South, TBWA\India.
 
The objective of the last campaign “Pedigree hi kafi hai “was to suggest to the dog owner that all his dog needs is satisfied by Pedigree as it is a complete meal in itself. “We were largely targeting dog owners who were already giving their dog Pedigree but as a supplement. In the current campaign, we have broadened our TG definition to include all dog owners feeding their dog home food,” said N.Balasubramanian, marketing head, Pedigree.

The campaign has been directed by Kaushik Sarkar and produced by Apostrophe Films.