JustFoodForDogs put tiny curated billboards in New York's uncollected dog poop

JustFoodForDogs, a human-grade fresh dog food maker sold in Petco stores, was launching its first integrated brand campaign and wanted an unexpected way to alert owners to the nutritional shortcomings of what they were feeding their dogs.

Tiny branded billboards went into piles on New York streets, each matched to the pile's condition and promising a cleanup crew was on its way. Conventional billboards, bus shelters, wallscapes and taxi tops across New York and Brooklyn carried lines like 'Our secret ingredient? No secret ingredients', with social posts on Instagram and Facebook — all under the new tagline 'Fresh Dog Food Made Right' and pointing to Petco, which stocks the brand in over 1,000 stores.

The material reports no measured results. CMO Steve Joyce framed the stunt as education — the brand's nine years of research against ordinary dog food — and Walrus CCO Deacon Webster called uncollected poop a perfect unexpected place for a little teaching, since the signs of an unhealthy diet were already on the street.

You can tell a lot about a dog's diet from its poop — so Walrus and JustFoodForDogs decided to advertise on it. As the centrepiece of the brand's first integrated campaign, tiny billboards were planted in piles of dog poop across New York City, one of the brand's largest markets.

The signs were curated to the evidence: dry poop got a recommendation for more fibre, gigantic 'two-baggers' got a warning about food that is hard to digest, and loose, discoloured or otherwise unhealthy piles got their own matching messages. Every sign carried the JustFoodForDogs brand and an assurance that cleanup crews would arrive shortly.

Around the stunt, the campaign ran deliberately plain outdoor and social work — 'No frills. Unless you count nine years of research as frills' — all bearing the tagline 'Fresh Dog Food Made Right' and directing owners to Petco, where the fresh, refrigerated food is sold in over 1,000 stores nationwide, including two flagship kitchens in New York City.

The ad appears exactly where its argument is made: an unhealthy diet shows in the poop.

Matching each sign to the pile's condition demonstrates the product logic instead of claiming it.

Promising a cleanup crew pre-empts the obvious 'you're littering' objection.

The medium can carry the proof: an ad about diet warning signs placed on the literal evidence turns an eyesore into a demonstration.

The material records no follow-up results; at publication JustFoodForDogs remained stocked in over 1,000 Petco locations nationwide.