“It’s Giving Texture!”: Food Influencer Dogs Delight For Pup-Peroni

Last week on Ad Of The Week UK we saw some podcaster cats – now Pup-Peroni are bringing us influencer dogs, with a set of foodie hounds posing for their fans in a witty and cute new commercial for the pet snack brand. BBH USA is creatively leading the campaign for PSOne, the Publicis Group bespoke agency for brand owner J.M.Smucker. They’ve devised an ad which manages to have its treat and eat it, getting plenty of satirical fun out of influencers while still letting dogs be dogs.

The ad sees dogs in a restaurant acting (and talking) like typical food influencers, striking a pose for the ‘gram, fussing over filters and emojis, and crying “It’s giving texture!” and “Yaaas!” over the Pup-Peroni treats. But when it comes to actually eating the snacks, the dogs just get to be dogs, knocking over the phone cameras and microphones in delightfully destructive fashion as they get their teeth into the slow-cooked beef.

Behind the laughs there are some clever decisions from Pup-Peroni, whose “Treat The Best To The Best” platform is designed to reinforce the idea of the brand as a premium treat for beloved pets. The ad is funny whether you love or loathe food influencers, with the dogs bursting their pretentious bubble to just be dogs by the end. The product is the hero throughout but the ad manages to smuggle in messages about ingredients and preparation in a very jokey way that never feels like a hard sell.

Most of all, an ad with canine influencers is a natural fit for a multi-platform campaign. The dogs can happily rub shoulders with real creators on Instagram and TikTok without seeming out of place in the way TV-led campaigns sometimes do. (See our recent report with TikTok for more on the different forms of social video campaigns and which work best).

On Test Your Ad, the dominant emotion for viewers is definitely happiness – the canine tastemakers are a huge hit. A mighty 63% of the audience reported feeling happiness from the Pup-Peroni commercial, against an average for US TV Ads of 41%. That led to the ad landing well above the category norm for pet food, scoring a 4.4-Star Rating, predicting a strong potential for market share gain long-term. The ad also comes in Strong on short-term Spike Rating, driven by a very high emotional intensity – again, the power of positive emotion is what’s making the ad work.

Pet food is an ad category where there’s always a potential for strong work because pets are naturally photogenic, very endearing subjects. But the danger there is that you need a strong idea to cut through – anyone can just put a cute dog in front of a camera and get a superficially appealing commercial. Pup-Peroni and PSOne show what you can do if you have a great concept and joyful execution too.