What Has Four Legs and Drives Impressions?
As an animal enthusiast I’m always sending or being sent the latest in cat tributes, toe-bean shots, corgi flops, camel photo-bombs…the whole deal. Lately I’ve noticed that more and more of those links come in the form of branded content and marketing campaigns.
With more and more white noise in the marketplace, brands face huge difficulty in reaching today’s consumer. And even greater difficulty making a real emotional connection when people have a million product choices and messages being thrown at them by the second. So it would seem that many brands are deploying a new tactic - branding and creating content that with an emotional hook that is almost impossible to ignore.
Consider this recent ad from Budweiser, which appeals to the highest form of emotional connection - that between a cute millennial guy and his yellow lab. Oh the emotional rollercoaster. We laughed. We cried. We triumphed together. We thought to ourselves “wow, that was really smart.” And really, it was.
I think all of us who have and love pets can attest to the pure, unadulterated affection they give and receive. Pets are expensive and time-consuming. On a purely rational level they make absolutely no sense. Yet 62% of US households own a pet and Americans spend $50 billion a year on pet products and services. Animals ground us in a way that other things (and often other people) cannot. They are honest and without guile. They provide a visceral connection to the basic things we seek and provide in life - love, sustenance, shelter. As marketers clearly are realizing, animals deliver an instant and undeniable emotional trigger that we just can’t help but love… and share.
All that to say, I think we can expect to see more and more animals at the heart of marketing and advertising campaigns for the foreseeable future. I can speak for Ready when I say we’re entirely on board. And with that, I leave you with a quick photo tribute to the pets of Ready366, in all of their furry and scrappy splendor.
Happy tails
-Kate
