In creating a new campaign for Purina secondnature dog litter (yes, there is such a product on the market now), the creative team at Berlin Cameron/Red Cell, New York, faced a few major challenges. For starters, the creatives had to address the issue of why pet owners need dog litter, and, frankly, that is hardly a pleasant subject.
Meanwhile, this was to be a viral Internet campaign, therefore the work needed to compel those who initially received the spots (they were emailed to 100,000 people who had signed up to get emails from Purina) to pass them along to others.
Oh, and the budget for this project was low–very low.
Keeping all of those factors in mind, Berlin Cameron ultimately chose to take a humorous approach, creating a campaign of three spots in which dogs come clean about why “accidents” happen when you’re not home. Among those commercials is SHOOT‘s Top Spot of Week, “Roxy” (:15). In the ad, a Jack Russell Terrier–her face pixilated to hide her identity–sits on her owner’s bed and confesses to the camera in a Valley Girl-style voice that she poops on “the sofa, the bed, important looking papers” when her owners go to the mall and leave her home alone. “Sometimes, I’ll poop on one thing and then do number one on something else,” she admits.
“Roxy” is hilarious, and the spot certainly speaks to dog owners everywhere who have returned home from work or a shopping trip to find a warm little surprise left by their furry friend.
DOG SHOW
Susan Griak, a veteran art director who had left Berlin Cameron last May to focus on developing her directorial career, was hired to helm the campaign. While Griak (whose dad is director/cameraman Steve Griak of Wilson Griak Films in Minneapolis) has directed short films and documentaries, the Purina campaign marked her first spot foray. “Susan is a great art director, and she loves dogs,” remarked Berlin Cameron creative director Izzy DeBellis. “She knows how to draw a performance out of a prima donna terrier or a Chihuahua.”
Casting was a fairly simple process: Griak wrangled dogs from colleagues and friends. Uno, the dog who played Roxy, is a Jack Russell Terrier owned by advertising art director Liza Giorsetti and her husband Alban Rocher. To direct Uno, Griak had to get a crash course in Dutch as the dog answers mainly to commands in that language. “Blijf” means “stay” in Dutch, Griak shared, showing off her newfound knowledge.
Uno, who plays a girl in the spot, is a boy, by the way. “Apparently, Alban’s parents, who reside in France, saw the spot and were disappointed that he was willing to play a woman in his Internet debut,” Griak revealed.
The dog was a natural, according to Griak, who shot “Roxy,” as well as the two other spots in the campaign, on digital video over the course of one day in her West Village apartment, with Jason Harvey serving as DP.
Once the shoot was over, Brandon Boudreaux of Day For Night, Berlin Cameron’s in-house editorial company, cut the spots and did the audio mixes. It was during the editorial process that voiceovers were matched to each dog. “It wasn’t really decided [which voice a dog would have] beforehand. The creatives had scripts, but they changed them a bit to suit the actions of the dogs,” Griak said.
The spots, which direct consumers to www.doglitter.com/poop for more confessions, have been quite successful, according to DeBellis, who reported that since the campaign launched, hits to the Web site have quadrupled. Additionally, he said that the campaign and product have been written up in USA Today and “Jay Leno even made a joke about it.”
So might we see these buzzed-about spots cross over to television? “We hope they make it to television,” DeBellis mused. “But you have to ask the question, Why bother?, if they are getting this much attention already without us having to buy media.”
