Video advertising of food for cats and dogs — a case study of edpit agency

You buy the food, pour it into the bowl, and your cat gives you a look that says, “Seriously?” Plenty of pet owners know that look. Moments like these tell you what matters to buyers. The ingredients on the label matter. So does seeing your pet enjoy the food.

For the pet food brand “М’ясна миска”, the edpit agency team created 12 short video ads about the benefits of its cat and dog food. We added a bonus director’s cut, adapted each story to different formats and made alternate endings featuring different products. That gave the client 117 finished versions, all from two days of filming.

A returning client, from the first campaign to a new series

We first worked with “М’ясна миска” about a year earlier. The client liked those ads and came back with a new brief. They wanted a series of videos showing the product’s main benefits.

This time, we built the campaign around three brand messages:

• Pets finish what’s in the bowl.
• The food contains plenty of meat ingredients.
• It contains no preservatives, colourings or flavourings.

We wrote four stories for each message. That gave us 12 ads with different characters and situations, all sharing the same product and sense of humour.

How do you show the benefits of pet food in 10–15 seconds?

A short ad has to get the viewer into the scene quickly. There’s little time for explanation. You need an action people can follow, a detail that catches the eye and a message they’ll remember.

We took familiar situations and added a touch of the absurd. Sometimes just a little. Sometimes a bear’s paw.

In one ad, a photographer is at work in the woods when a bear appears beside him. All we see is a paw next to the photographer. The viewer can picture the rest. That sets up the joke. A pet can finish the food before the bear decides what’s for breakfast.

In another story, a woman accidentally knocks over a vase. As it falls, we freeze the frame. The voiceover has just enough time to tell us that a pet can finish the food before the vase hits the floor.

A little advertising exaggeration turns the product claim into a scene. The viewer gets the joke, and the brand gets a story of its own to tell about the food.

Food pets finish, and why we chose that message

For a cat or dog owner, choosing pet food doesn’t end at the shop shelf. The real test comes at home. Will my pet eat it? Will I have to go looking for something else?

That’s why we made finishing the bowl one of the three themes of the series. We played with split-second events and unexpected comparisons to bring that idea to life. The meat ingredients and the absence of preservatives, colourings and flavourings each got stories of their own.

Pet food ads with people on camera

When we first worked together, the client and our team agreed to film without live cats or dogs. We kept that approach for the new campaign.

We wanted to spare the animals unnecessary stress. Working with animals also means planning the schedule around them and being ready for a take to go in an unexpected direction. Building the stories around people gave us more freedom to play with the comedy.

We held auditions, cast the actors and worked out each character’s look and wardrobe. Even the forest scene came together without a live bear. An actor operated a realistic paw from a bear costume. A close-up did the rest.

Full-service video production and two days on set

edpit agency handled the entire production, from concepts and scripts through casting, location scouting, props, costumes, filming, editing, graphics and sound. The client supplied the product points and two slogans, one of which we’d written for the previous campaign.

Detailed preparation made it possible to shoot 12 stories in two days. We scouted the locations, worked through different ways to stage the scenes, prepared the props and scheduled the cast and crew.

We filmed outdoors, in a lift and on a soundstage. One scene featured a juggler. Each story called for a different mix of locations, costumes and setups, so we planned how to move from one to the next before the shoot began.

Despite the air raid alerts, we finished the planned shoot on time.

The bags turned out to be the most stubborn things on set

In one scene, an actress opens a cupboard and a huge pile of bags tumbles out onto her. Simple enough on paper. On set, the bags had other ideas. They were in no hurry to come out.

We came up with a fix during the shoot. Using fishing line, we rigged a mechanism that let a crew member gradually push the bags out of the cupboard. That gave us control over exactly when they fell.

The moment lasts only a few seconds in the finished ad. A fair bit of work went into getting those bags to fall properly.

How 12 ads became 117 finished videos

For an ad campaign, the story is only part of the job. The client also needs to be able to run it across different placements and show the right product to each audience.

We made each ad in three formats: horizontal, square and vertical. For every format, we produced three versions of the packshot, the final shot showing the product:

• Cat food.
• Dog food.
• Cat and dog food together.

The client can choose an ending for cat owners, one for dog owners, or one that shows both product ranges.

12 stories × 3 formats × 3 packshots = 108 finished versions.

The bonus director’s cut of the bear ad added nine more. For the main campaign, the client chose the shorter version, in which the paw taps the photographer on the head. In the alternate scene, the bear rests its paw on him. We gave that moment more time in the edit and delivered the longer cut to the client as a bonus, in all three formats and with all three packshots.

In total, the client received 117 videos ready to use in ads. Most run for around 10–15 seconds. We prepared the formats with Reels, Stories, TikTok, YouTube, websites and TV placements in mind. If a particular outlet has additional requirements, the series can be adapted to meet them.

What the brand received

The client received a complete series of video ads built around three product messages, with a variety of stories and a choice of which products to show. Their feedback was positive.

Campaign performance figures weren’t available when we wrote this case study. What we can share now are the ads themselves and the story of how we made them.

For us, this project showed how to build a cat and dog food campaign around product benefits while leaving room for humour. Planning the different versions before the shoot also meant the client had the material they needed for each placement.

Need video ads for a pet food brand, a pet supplies company or another business? edpit agency can take your campaign from the first idea to the finished ads. Tell us about your product and what you want to achieve, and we’ll put together a concept and a cost estimate.