The dog food brand Ollie recently debuted “Feed the Obsession,” its most extensive national campaign to date. Developed in partnership with agency nice&frank and directed by Josefine Cardoni, the creative strategy celebrates the intensive devotion of dog parents while highlighting the brand’s human-grade fresh food and tech-enabled wellbeing tools.The brand’s :30 ‘Marco’ spot fetched outstanding results as a standout performer for pet owners.
Here’s what iSpot’s Creative Assessment platform revealed among pet owners.
The Details:
Among dog owners:
- The :30 “Marco” (aka “Healthy Boys”) was the new Ollie campaign’s strongest overall performer, indexing +43 pts over the pet care category one-year norm in overall performance among dog owners, landing in the 61st percentile:
- Driven by the ad’s characters (rated Single Best Thing about the spot by 25% of dog owners vs 16% for the average pet care ad) and assisted by the Nostalgic music (10% vs 4% norm), “Marco” achieved above-norm breakthrough (Attention and Likeability) and Watchability. The entertaining creative connected well across gender and generations, and particularly with female dog owners.
- The Narrative was emotionally engaging and positioned the brand and product in a positive light and successfully pushed the target audience down the funnel with an above-norm Desire score (+51 pts over norm), and a consumer intent rate of 65% (vs an average persuasion for the category of 59%).
- Driven by the ad’s characters (rated Single Best Thing about the spot by 25% of dog owners vs 16% for the average pet care ad) and assisted by the Nostalgic music (10% vs 4% norm), “Marco” achieved above-norm breakthrough (Attention and Likeability) and Watchability. The entertaining creative connected well across gender and generations, and particularly with female dog owners.
- While all three campaign ads successfully engaged dog owners, the :30 “Marco” led throughout the full length as seen on second-by-second trace results:
- Sentiment among dog owners on “Marco” reveals the execution to be a successful brand-building ad that created emotional engagement and memorability.
- As intended, the portrayal of the human-dog relationship in this spot resonated deeply with dog-owning viewers. Comments demonstrated successful connections, with the tattoo detail specifically called out as a genuine show of devotion.
- Key to success was the dog, particularly wearing matching sunglasses. This cuteness and other visual devotion moments (activity bonding, matching accessories) created standout recall.
- The Kylie Minogue song was also praised as “perfect” for the highly relatable scenarios and message with very little negative-leaning responses seen among this audience. Some would have liked more specific product-related Information.
- Sentiment among dog owners on “Marco” reveals the execution to be a successful brand-building ad that created emotional engagement and memorability.
Sample comments among dog owners on the “Marco” :30
“I enjoy watching this ad because I am a dog owner myself and I saw the attention the man was giving his dog. He was very loving, and very, very considerate of his dog too, which is how I am with my own dogs.”
Female 36-49
“Played on my heartstrings. I love my doggies.”
Female 36-49
“I thought it was adorable. I love the relationship between dogs and humans. Dogs are our friends. I don’t care if that sounds cheesy. I’ll be more than happy to give my dog Ollie.”
Female 50+
“The ad simply implied a man who loved his dog. Nothing was shown about the company Ollie, just a dog wearing shades.”
Male 50+
“The dog is freaking adorable. I’m getting glasses for mine.”
Male 36-49
“Very cute. I do want the best for my dog and I can relate.”
Female 36-49
“The ad was memorable and attention grabbing. I liked the music and the dog featured in the ad. I’m not confident of what product they offer though.”
Female 36-49
“I enjoyed this ad for Ollie. The Kylie Minogue hit song was perfect and the dog was super cute.”
Male 50+
“Love the characters, the dog was awesome. But I wanted to see the product.”
Female 50+
“I like the music and the relationship of dog and owner.”
Male 36-49
“I love dogs so it’s a good ad, but honestly, I have no idea what the product is. Treats??”
Male 36-49
- “Marco” represents the lead creative of the campaign, sparking the strongest purchase intent (+6 pts vs. norm), and the highest overall response:
- “Billy Willy” (aka “Mom Mode”) and “Pets First” (aka “Mealtime Magic”) both showed audience-specific utility but would not carry broad reach weight as successfully as “Marco.”
- “Pets First” resonated very well with dog owners aged 36-49 while “Billy Willy” struggled with this same segment. All three spots showed a relative weakness among younger males 18-35.
- “Billy Willy” (aka “Mom Mode”) and “Pets First” (aka “Mealtime Magic”) both showed audience-specific utility but would not carry broad reach weight as successfully as “Marco.”
- “Pets First” trailed in persuasiveness among dog owners, with a normative 56% Top 2 Box purchase/visit intent:
- While within range of the category norm, this represents a -9 pt delta vs the strongest ad in the campaign, “Marco.” The unique visuals of “Marco” clearly stood apart and positively impacted relatability among other creative performance metrics.
- “Marco” ranks 13th among all pet care ads released over the most recent 90 days among dog owners, but boasts the highest consideration rate (tied with ads from Purina, Blue Buffalo, Freshpet, and Spot Insurance:
- The campaign overall met normative performance benchmarks for pet care ads within the broader gen pop audience, suggesting media placements favor pet/animal content and/or dog-owner audiences:
- “Marco” was also the most successful in driving consideration with this audience.
- Many of the recent top performing pet care ads among dog owners triggered stronger Healthy response, suggesting this as a feature Ollie could use to bring more detail in future ads:
Ineffective creative, even if delivered to the right audience, results in missed opportunity and performance shortfalls. Great creative delivered poorly also results in failed campaigns.
Schedule a demo to find out how your brand can partner with iSpot to quickly solve both challenges simultaneously, delivering high-performing creative while boosting the effectiveness of planning and in-market execution to achieve—and outperform—campaign objectives.
Creative Agency: nice&frank