Behind the Pet Food Ad That Knows You’ll Always Forgive Your Mucky Pup

An undeniable but often unmentioned aspect of dog ownership is forgiveness. ‘Yes, the dog chewed up the carpet.’, ‘Yes, the dog peed indoors.’, and ‘Yes, the dog ate the food that was cooling on the side.’... but we still love them anyway.

Our dogs’ imperfections are part of the reason that we love them, and although you’d be hard pressed to find an owner that admits their pup isn’t perfect, there’s an undeniable truth in the matter. Pet food brand The Honest Kitchen has tapped into the idea, launching a campaign that’s as ‘honest’ in nature as the ‘honest’ in its name.

The campaign, titled, ‘Feed Them The Best, Whether They Deserve It Or Not’, spotlights some of the less-lovable aspects of dog ownership, encompassing unrelenting streams of drool, mass shedding, furniture destruction, and muddy paw prints. Putting
imperfect canines at the centre, the work connects with pet owners on a relatable but humorous level.

Created by Denver-based advertising agency Good Conduct, the work marks its first brand level campaign for The Honest Kitchen, as the brand makes a strategic shift from performance marketing to brand awareness.

Keen to find out more about the work, and the level of communication that’s achieved through a dog’s side-eye, LBB’s Abi Lightfoot spoke with Rob Lewis, CCO and co-founder at Good Conduct, and The Honest Kitchen’s CMO, Miki Dosen.

LBB> This was your first brand-level campaign for The Honest Kitchen, what were your initial aims and intentions going into the project?

Rob> Our goal is always to help our clients connect with their consumers on a level beyond product features and attributes. To do that, we need to get people to pay attention, and we need our message to resonate with them. This is especially true in the pet food category, where there are so many choices and a tonne of information. So, we wanted to create a campaign that was different from pet food conventions. Something that could really break through and entertain people, and not just play on themes like ingredient claims or trying to pull on heartstrings. We wanted to do something no one had seen or heard before in this category.

LBB> There’s four TV spots, each featuring a different dog and their questionable habits. How did you decide on the breeds and behaviours to feature in the campaign?

Rob> There are four scenarios, cut into 12 TV spots. Some lead with the product while others lead with the behaviour, so they work at different levels of the marketing funnel. We also have 15-second versions.

When thinking of pet behaviours, it was really fun to consider what scenarios made the most sense. We wanted to make sure that these behaviours (messes) covered a wide range of pet parent pain points. We didn’t want all of them to be based on destruction, because that’s so narrow, and more relevant to young dogs. So, the idea was to consider the different ways dog ownership is messy, crazy, and hard.

That led us to decide on one that was based on destructive behaviour, a couple that are based on cleaning up – shedding dog and muddy footprints – and one that was based on waking you up (in the worst way) when you don’t want to get up. Then, we overlapped that thinking with what would make for the most visually interesting work, and what breeds would make the most sense for that behaviour.

LBB> The voiceover proves that even the most matter-of-fact attitude can be transformed by the power of puppy dog eyes. How did you decide on this specific approach to the voiceover?

Rob> This is one of our favourite details of the campaign. Staying true to our approach of trying to connect with our audience, we thought about how dog owners actually react to their dogs’ misbehaviour in real life: we get mad, but we can’t stay mad for long. So, we mirrored that same truth with the voiceover. He starts by being stern, even claiming that the dog doesn’t deserve good food, only to cave 20 seconds later. Exactly how we would act at home.

That same idea comes through in other aspects of the campaign, with billboards that say things like, ‘You’ll never not forgive this face’, or ‘Whole food ingredients, even after the whole leg-humping incident’.

LBB> Whilst I believe that these dogs have all been framed and are completely innocent of any wrongdoing, how did you work to position these dogs as ‘guilty’, but still entirely lovable and deserving of the best, premium food?

Rob> Haha! While these pups may have been ‘framed’, if you look at Leon’s eyes, you can tell he’s definitely capable. And Meatball’s drool was 100% real.

We did a couple of things to capture the dogs’ ‘emotions’ in these spots. We worked with their trainers and ‘parents’ to try to get the dogs to look in different directions, to try to capture those moments where their eyes look almost human. When a dog side-eyes you, it can communicate a lot. So, some of it was patience and trial and error.

The other was choosing the film speed. By being at just the right amount of slow motion, those little looks back to or away from the camera speak volumes, especially in context of what was happening in the background.

LBB> They say to ‘never work with children or animals’ – did you have to overcome any animal-related mishaps whilst bringing this campaign to life?

Rob> It makes it tough to not work with animals when you’re making a dog food commercial. But I will say, we were relieved we weren’t making a cat food version! Our team has experience working with pets in the past, so we specifically designed the campaign so the dogs primarily had to sit in the foreground versus perform. So, as you can imagine, the ‘Drooling Alarm Clock’ spot with the St. Bernard was the most challenging, because it didn’t stick to that structure. That one took the most improvisation on set, trying to get the dog to do certain things or be in a specific place. And with him being over 200 pounds, it wasn’t easy to manoeuvre him. We ended up having to prop him up on an impromptu platform to get the perfect distance between his face and the actress’ for the opening shot. Luckily, the actress was a champ, and nailed some especially slobbery takes she easily could have wrecked by getting too grossed out from the drool.

Otherwise, we had one picky eater, and we were a little limited on takes, but overall, they were very good boys and girls.

LBB> Can you tell us more about the insight that informs this campaign, and why it was important to set The Honest Kitchen apart from pet food category norms?

Miki> Over the past several years, we’ve noticed a trend that all brands, from value up to premium, are saying the exact same thing. The Honest Kitchen is known as a leader and a brand that breaks down barriers (we invented Human Grade Pet food after all!), so we felt we really need to go deeper and get the true insights around being a pet parent. That alone – the focus on the pet parent and not the dog – was something that immediately stood out to us. While most brands are focusing on the dog (as an athlete, as a wild animal, or as a trusted companion), we realised that no one was really talking to the pet parent about how it feels to be a pet parent. Once we unlocked that angle, the insights started flowing.

In a world of perfectly curated social media profiles, all we ever see is all the wonderfully perfect moments of being a pet parent. But it didn’t take too many conversations with pet parents to realise that the relationship we have with our pets is anything but perfect. Literally every single person we talked to had some, and often many, stories of the drama we go through with our pets, whether that’s them interrupting an important Zoom call with nonstop barking, destroying a room when left alone too long, or, my personal favourite (and almost weekly occurrence in my house), when they walk across that freshly cleaned floor with their dirty paws. But the amazing thing was that everyone had the same response – a deep sigh is about all you could muster up. That pure, endless love that dogs offer, and that innocent look in their eyes quickly turns that anger into immediate forgiveness and a good old belly rub!

So, for us, we want to stay true to the ‘honest’ in our name and share the struggle with our fellow pet parents. We see you and you’re not alone! But we also know that at our core, we all want to do what’s best for our pets, and so much of that comes down to what we feed them. At The Honest Kitchen, our standards and processes are so high and we make sure that what we feed our pets is the absolute best they can possibly get – hence ‘feed them the best’ (no matter what!).

LBB> ‘Feed Them The Best, Whether They Deserve It Or Not’, marks a strategic shift for The Honest Kitchen, as the brand moves from performance marketing to brand awareness. How does the campaign help to do this?

Miki> The Honest Kitchen has experienced tremendous year-on-year growth, and the majority of that has come from word of mouth, our amazing reviews, and recommendations from store staff that have come to trust and love the brand over the past 20 years.

Looking ahead to the next 20 years, we’re back to our mission. All we want is to put as many pets as possible on the path to good health through good food. We knew we needed to tell our story more loudly than we had in the past. That was the biggest driver in us wanting to launch our first fully-integrated marketing campaign. We knew we needed to tell more pet parents about our brand, so they too could experience the benefits of our products firsthand. While the campaign is fun and engaging, and hopefully puts a smile on your face, our true hope is that pet parents everywhere relook at what they are feeding their pet and consider The Honest Kitchen as a healthier, more high-quality alternative.

LBB> How will you build on the ‘Feed Them The Best, Whether They Deserve It Or Not’ platform going forward?

Miki> We have a lot of exciting things to come in the balance of the year. You’ll be seeing some great partnerships with influencers, some fun activations across key US cities, and some amazing brand collabs – plus even more brand-led ‘Feed Them the Best’ creative. The early response has been tremendous – everyone can relate to the stories we are telling. And there is definitely no shortage of stories we can tell!

LBB> The campaign is grounded in relatability, capturing the most unglamorous, chaotic aspects of dog ownership. Were any of the scenarios based on real life experiences?

Miki> All of them! We had so many ideas – it was actually quite hard to narrow it down to which ones we wanted to highlight! It was important for us to balance out the physical messes and the simple realities of having a dog (shedding, anyone?) to the special quirks of different breeds (how could you not love a 200-pound drooling machine!). But absolutely, between the brand team and the creative team, there was a lot of head nodding and flashbacks to all the scenarios we featured.

LBB> The work both acknowledges the less-than-perfect reality of pet ownership, and the undying love that pet owners have for their furry friends – why was it important to show this balance and connect with customers in this way?

Miki> We wanted to show both sides – the good and the bad – because that’s reality, and we feel like that’s what’s missing from the category. Everything is so one-dimensional. We felt it was so important for us to share that you can both have moments of frustration and even sometimes anger, but in the end, that doesn’t change the way we feel about our four-legged family members. We did some consumer work late last year and it came out that in many cases, people felt they had a deeper connection to their pet than they did with their partners. That love runs deep! Regardless of how they behave, we love them unconditionally and want to do everything we can to help them live a long and healthy life.