The Client
Founded in 2005, Pet Drugs Online has grown to become one of the UK's largest and most trusted vet-run suppliers of veterinary medication and animal products licensed in the UK.
The Challenge
As its name suggests, Pet Drugs Online is primarily associated with providing online pet prescriptions. However, with their pet food range expanding rapidly, they needed to communicate to their target audience that they offer a wide variety of pet food too.
Our task was to highlight to pet parents - who may not associate Pet Drugs Online with pet food - that the brand is food-focussed too by conveying that food is central to pet wellness.
Pet Drugs Online was eager to break away from the conventional and often clichéd territory of pet food adverts, seeking instead to use humour and intrigue to stand out. This presented an exciting opportunity for the ORCA creative team.
The Process
We kicked off the process with several ideation workshops, including all the key stakeholders. Here we developed the core concept for the campaign: “pet-ifying” humans by portraying them eating in the manner of our beloved pets. This playful and unconventional idea became the foundation for the campaign. We brought it to life through detailed scripting and storyboarding, then presented it to Pet Drugs Online, who loved the unique and entertaining approach.
Bringing this vision to life required assembling the perfect team of collaborators. To achieve this, we partnered with our trusted friends at NUSA Studios for production and enlisted the exceptionally talented Alice Panerai as director, whose impressive track record in comedy made her the ideal choice for the project.
After an extensive phase of moodboarding, creative development, and talent and location scouting, we found the perfect settings to bring our story to life. Three distinctive locations were chosen to reflect the diverse lives of Pet Drugs Online customers. The advert showcases a variety of lifestyles and backgrounds, underscoring that Pet Drugs Online has something for everyone.
The Solution
The result was a standout campaign that successfully highlighted Pet Drugs Online’s growing focus on pet food. Titled ‘No Matter Their Manners…’, the campaign features a series of captivating scenes where humans exhibit peculiar, unexpected behaviours - only to reveal that they’re mimicking the actions of pets. This fresh and imaginative approach flips the traditional narrative, moving away from the common trope of humanising pets to instead “pet-ifying” humans.