Finding Love at First Sight in Your Local Dog Shelter with Pedigree

Romance is dead, or so they say. With dating apps and social media fostering many of our personal interactions nowadays, that joyous spark of unexpected connection is getting rarer and rarer. However, one place where this instantaneous moment of love can still be felt is at your local dog shelter, where so many new pet parents find ‘the one’.

Exploring this insight, dog food brand Pedigree and agency BBDO New York created ‘Love at First Sight’, a campaign that gives dog adopters and their newfound friends the Hollywood moment they deserve. The project includes a series of TVC films from Landia directors Lucas Shannon and Odile Luisa that take on rom-com tropes, showing magical meetings with a canine twist, as well as some touching, light-hearted (paw) print work.

To find out more about this labour of puppy love, LBB’s Ben Conway spoke with some of the BBDO creatives behind the work - associate creative directors Benner Rawley and Maya Iwata.

LBB> How did this campaign come about? What was the brief from Pedigree like?

Benner> Pedigree’s mission of ‘Feed the Good’ is often focused on helping dogs find their forever homes. There are millions of great dogs sitting in shelters. What we wanted to highlight this time around when promoting adoption is that adopting a dog isn’t only good for them but it's life changing for the owner, too. There’s a lot of hesitancy around adopting dogs from shelters, it can feel like a gamble to some people, given all the question marks they may have around these potential pets. But what our team found and brought into the creative brief was that overwhelmingly these worries just melt away at the shelter when you meet the right dog. Many truly described the experience of finding their shelter dog as ‘love at first sight’.

LBB> What was the creative spark behind this rom-com movie idea?

Benner> It was that moment of instant connection we really sparked with. Because it’s so true, particularly when it comes to dog adoption. When you know, you know. And that’s how you decide. It’s already quite romantic - like the way people come together and find ‘the one’ in films. We saw this cultural opportunity because we live in a time where, when it comes to love, dating apps and social media have sort of left many people our age thinking romance - the sort you see in the movies - is dead. But we knew that it wasn’t - it just turns out that ‘special someone’ might be a dog, waiting for you in a shelter.

LBB> How was the writing process for the films? What were some of your favourite ideas and moments from creating these ‘Love at First Sight’ scenarios and writing cheesy romcom lines? 

Benner> We spent a lot of time combing through scenes from Hollywood classics for inspiration. We knew we needed scenarios that were timeless and would feel familiar, without coming off as parodies. The other part of the equation was figuring out how these examples could then translate into that wide-shot gag in the shelter.

This is where the rain and confetti worked out perfectly but, for example, starting with a rowboat in Central Park or a beautiful vista at sunset couldn’t really land the same way. So it was a balance of considerations of how we could bring this into the shelter in a way that was funny and noticeable, but didn’t compromise the authenticity or feeling of the movie scene preceding it. 

Writing the lines for our romantic heroes then almost just fell out of thinking up all these scenes. We’ve all seen so many variations of this moment in movies that we really didn’t have to think too hard to come up with what they would say, and it organically ended up feeling very authentic to how people who have adopted feel about their dogs too.  

LBB> There’s also an accompanying print campaign - what went into those designs?

Maya> Print is often a challenging medium because you’re forced to distil the essence of your message into its most simple, visual form. Because a single film grab doesn't do our spots justice, we had to try a lot of different things - such as posters inspired by movies and dating shows. 

In the end we landed with a simple key visual that shows a human and dog holding hands (or technically, paw and hand) and being spotlighted in a shelter, showing how magical that first moment of connection can be. It feels cinematic and special, yet attainable to anyone at the same time, which is very fitting for not only the message we wanted to communicate but also for the brand’s ethos as well. 

We worked with an Argentinian photographer duo called SISSO + CHOUELA (David Sisso and Guido Chouela), and they truly went above and beyond in making sure our vision came to life and that we were well-equipped for the post production process.

LBB> Why were Landia and the directors the ideal production partners?

Maya> It was important for us to find directors who could balance this perfect ratio we were looking for - 80% ‘move me’ and 20% ‘make me laugh’ - and also who had a visually stunning reel. We were first drawn to Lucas [Shannon, director] because of the great work he had done on the ‘Rhino’ spot for Cesar, and he seemed to be a pro at combining storytelling with humour. 

Lucas and the rest of the team at Landia not only surpassed what we envisioned but made the whole production process incredibly easy, thanks to how thorough, professional, collaborative, and kind they were from start to finish. They were highly efficient, and it felt like they were on our side as true partners to make work that we were all proud of. If we needed any changes or had any callouts, it was quickly addressed and we continued on. We’re all super happy with what we were able to create together.

Benner> The attention to detail in every aspect  on Landia’s side was impressive, they even built those shelters we used as our sets from scratch. It was also great the emphasis they had on getting everything done in-camera, practically. The ‘rain’ and confetti in both the movie scenes and shelter scenes were real. It was cool watching them figure out and dial in how to just perfectly control those elements - and they ended up looking and feeling great. 

LBB> What did you learn from being on set in Argentina?

Benner> We were down in Argentina for about a week. It can always be tricky shooting with dogs, but Landia were really well prepared and experienced, and sourced us great talent to shoot with. It was raining basically the whole week we were there - except for the day we had to shoot the rain scene outside. That wound up falling on the sunniest and most beautiful day of the trip. The production team managed to make it work, and found some clouds to give us cover. 

Maya> We also had a lot of fun being able to experience a little bit of the local culture in our down time (one thing we did was go to an Argentine tango show), and the locations we shot in were stunning as well. We captured a few scenes in this palace-turned museum, and because we had a lot of different processes and workflows going on at the same time, it was amazing seeing how efficiently planned out the production was. From the constant bouncing around and different things going on around us at all times, you’re forced to think on your feet and learn to trust your creative intuition (you have it for a reason), which is something you really learn best by doing over and over.

LBB> How does this campaign fit into Pedigree’s wider, existing branding and marketing? Is the ‘Love at First Sight’ concept going to be developed into a larger platform going forward?

Benner> It falls very naturally into what we’ve been doing at large on Pedigree, which is all laddering up to their mission of ‘Feed the Good’. We’re promoting dog adoption, and doing it by highlighting the special bond people form with their pets. ‘Love at First Sight’ feels like a big relatable way of doing that - and there will be other things to come that fall under this umbrella soon enough - for instance, ‘Rebound Dogs’' which is also set to come out soon. It's just a fertile territory to play in and have fun with. 

LBB> What was the most creatively challenging part of this campaign, and how did you overcome it? 

Maya> We learned a lot from this campaign and looking back on it, everything helped us to grow a lot as creatives. We wouldn’t have had it any other way, and working with a great team - not only on the BBDO side but also with Landia - made the whole experience for us. 

The main challenge was ensuring that the creative work maintained the same magic it had when we first sold it. More often than not, it can be easy to lose focus on what we’re really trying to accomplish and get distracted by optimisation, branding, and all of those checkboxes. We just stayed true to the core of the campaign and did our best at advocating for what we believed were the best decisions to ensure the strongest work. In the end, we all came out with something we were proud of.

LBB> Equally, what was the most fulfilling or fun aspect?

Benner> Immediately when we wrapped on set we were handed beers and puppies. That was always going to be hard to top. But once we got in the edit, and really got to see how these spots came together, it was clear we had gotten exactly what we had dreamed up at the start of this; something that really spoke to that experience everyone who has adopted a dog has felt when they met ‘the one’. That felt very special and speaks to a lot of prospective pet parents out there. 

Maya> Feeling like you’re working to help share a meaningful message you believe in and bettering the world (even if it’s just a tiny bit) is a very special and rewarding experience. This campaign was also somewhat new to us in that we had never done work that skewed heartfelt before, so venturing into that territory for the first time was a great stepping stone for us as creatives. 

Also… yes, dogs and puppies on set are a bonus too. Big productions like this campaign are more rare nowadays, so getting to do that from brief to delivery (and getting to travel to Buenos Aires) was a fun adventure for us too.