The Creative Process of Writing an Ad Entirely from a Pet’s Perspective
Owning and loving a pet is a wholly unique emotional rollercoaster. One of the biggest hurdles for pet owners, aside from all the poop, drool and semi-regular vomit, is finding reliable, loving people to watch their pet while they're away.
According to research by Seattle agency Little Hands of Stone, 68% of pet owners say their pet has a unique need - so it's little wonder that they stress about specific pet care details.
With all of this in mind, Little Hands of Stone recently collaborated with Rover, the largest pet care platform in the US, on 'To My Hooman', a joyous new brand campaign told entirely from pets' loving, emotionally intelligent perspective. Utilising hand-drawn animation from the team at Giant Ant, it encourages pets to let their 'hoomans' know that it's totally OK to 'go do hooman thing', because they're in the safe hands of Rover's reliable sitters.
Eager to know about the process of thinking like our beloved pets, LBB's Addison Capper picked the brains of Matt McCain, co-founder at Little Hands of Stone.
LBB> What was the brief like from the client that led to this work? And what were your first thoughts when you saw it?
Matt> The brief for this project was fairly intimidating. Rover, despite its fuzzy exterior, is an extremely data- and performance-driven company. They were looking for a hybrid campaign that not only built brand love, but also tested a double-digit suite of features to see which would drive more engagement and acquisition. We had to nail the emotional element, but also produce a high volume of assets to help drive insights for future work. And the budget was…finite. My first thoughts when we got the brief were: yes and yikes. We love seemingly impossible briefs because it forces our creativity into unexpected places. And we love working with Rover because while they are super data-driven, they know safe creative won’t drive results, so there’s an appetite for risk there that’s essential.
LBB> I need to know about the research! I can imagine it being the most joyful experience placing yourselves in the eyes of dogs. What was that process like? And what were the most surprising facts that you unearthed about man's best friends along the way?
Matt> The primary aim of our research was to uncover the biggest barrier to getting new customers (who typically rely on friends and family for pet care) to trust their beloved pets with someone they’ve never met through an app. The biggest takeaway was that our human happiness is completely intertwined with the happiness of our pets. If we don’t think our pets are safe and happy, we can’t relax or enjoy ourselves on vacation (or at work). It’s a completely codependent relationship (at least from the human POV). In fact, a lot of people we talked to actually avoid taking trips because they’re worried their pets will have a tough time. But we also know that Rover sitters have 97% five-star ratings, which can only happen if pets (and their parents) are happy with the experience. We needed to communicate to pet parents that with Rover, they can go do human stuff without their pets, with zero guilt.
LBB> Once you'd done that research, what was the writing process like? How did you translate all of that knowledge into the words and world of a dog?
Matt> Knowing that our human happiness is tied to the happiness of our pets, we landed on the thought that the best voice to assure pet parents that it’s OK to go do their own thing is that of the pets themselves. From there, we had to make that voice and perspective feel as authentic as possible so that humans could trust it. Creating that world was a true collaboration between us, our clients at Rover (who are OBSESSED pet lovers), and the folks at Giant Ant, who are true pet lovers as well. How could we see the world through the imagination and emotional intelligence of our pets? And do so without falling into the overly sweet, cutesy-cute trap. Visually, we loved the idea that from a pet’s POV, humans’ bodies are 80% legs and that human faces only have the things that convey emotion – a mouth and eyes. And we liked imagining that to our pets, slobbery balls, drool and furballs are a love language.
LBB> How did you land on the 'voice' of the dog?
Matt> We loved the idea of the pet’s voice being represented by a child. I’d seen videos of a New York public school children’s choir (PS22), and their voices are so pure and authentic and heartwarming. The idea of combining that charm and emotional richness with the ridiculousness of broken English pet-speak felt really original to us. The performer is actually the 10-year-old son of the music composer, and the backup harmonies are courtesy of a handful of neighbourhood kids.
LBB> And why was the musical element incorporated? What did this add?
Matt> We loved the idea of a song for its storytelling powers, as well as its ability to become an earworm. But the sneaky part about the musical element is that it allowed us to create some shared DNA between the longform brand film and the 10 other feature-driven shorter videos in the campaign. And the sweetness and ridiculousness of the song allowed us to sell features really hard without it feeling too feature-focused.
LBB> Why did you opt for animation? And more specifically, what did this hand drawn approach add to the overall message?
Matt> We went with animation for a handful of reasons. First, it helped Rover’s brand stand out in an insanely crowded pet care category. But primarily, it allowed us to be extremely cost-efficient without sacrificing anything creatively. In fact, the crude, hand-drawn look helped nail the voice and perspective of the pet. The ‘beginner’s hand’, as the animators called it, simplifies the pets’ world to the only things that matter – their hooman’s emotions, squishy laps, drool and good butt scratches.
LBB> What were the trickiest components and how did you overcome them?
Matt> This was a balancing act on many levels. We wanted to be sweet and emotional without going into cute, saccharine territory. To keep from getting too cute, we were sure to keep good amounts of authentic gross and gritty pet stuff – having an ‘x’ for the dog’s butthole is a prime example. The other tricky component was telling a fairly nuanced story (hooman leaves pet, pet has fun with sitter, pet reaches out through the cosmos to give signs to its hooman) with crude, stripped-down animation. We were always pushing to have the animation use as little visual information as possible while moving the story along. On an overall level, we needed to tell an emotional story while baking in real Rover product benefits. We achieved this by speaking to the benefits from the pet’s perspective, which actually allows you to sell harder without it feeling sales-y.
LBB> Are you a dog owner? If so, has this at all made you think about your relationship with them any differently?
Matt> Yes, our family has a hilariously goofy Wirehaired Pointing Griffon named Buggy, who I speak to in a stupid pet voice ALL THE TIME. This campaign was inspired in some ways by my wife’s anxiety about leaving Buggy with sitters. I could tell that Buggy was having the time of her life (the sitter would send update pics), so the problem was really entirely my wife’s. I do look for Buggy’s love language a bit more, coming off the campaign.
LBB> Any parting thoughts?
Matt> One thing we love about working with the folks at Rover is that they’ve always pushed to make the work authentic to what it’s like to love a pet. Our relationships with pets are weird, gross, occasionally heartbreaking, and there’s hair everywhere all the time. One of Rover’s main principles is that if the work we do makes non-pet people uncomfortable, we’re doing it right. That’s a recipe for great creative.
