Pedigree casts real shelter dogs in its ads — every ad becomes an adoption listing

AI turns grainy shelter snapshots into studio portraits; each Pedigree ad features a real adoptable local dog that leaves the campaign once adopted.

Pedigree · Mars Pet Nutrition

创意是什么Put a local, adoptable shelter dog into every Pedigree ad: AI restyles its shelter snapshot into a studio portrait, and the dog is pulled from rotation once adopted.伤筋动骨

当时的题目

Mars's marketing director set the brief with one banned word — 'efficiency'. AI had to serve Pedigree's mission of ending dog homelessness, and the real barrier was that shelter dogs' grainy, volunteer-shot photos made them look damaged and unadoptable.

它是怎么成立的

Every Pedigree ad around the world has one thing in common: it features a dog. Colenso BBDO asked what would happen if that dog could actually be adopted — and made it so, by turning Pedigree's media into adoption listings for real shelter dogs.

The blocker was photography. Shelter dogs were photographed by volunteers with whatever they had, and the grainy, unflattering images reinforced the idea that they were damaged. Pedigree's team built an AI model, trained on thousands of dog images, that transformed each real shelter snapshot into a polished, emotionally compelling studio portrait.

The system was geo-targeted: every digital ad showed a dog adoptable near the viewer, with a QR code to the dog's shelter profile. Once a dog found a home it was instantly removed from circulation. In New Zealand, 50% of featured dogs were adopted within two weeks, shelters saw six times their normal foot traffic in the first 12 weeks, and adoptions rose 600%.

The campaign won two Grand Clios at the 2025 Clio Awards plus the Cannes Lions 2024 Outdoor Grand Prix, and Pedigree began scaling the model to North America, the world's largest pet market.

妙在哪

The ad itself became the product: every Pedigree commercial doubled as an adoption listing for a real, nearby dog.
It removed the actual barrier — terrible shelter photography — instead of asking under-resourced shelters to become tech-savvy.
Geo-targeting and real-time removal tied every media dollar to a measurable outcome: a dog going home.
It proved AI could build brand values, not just reach, by using the technology for emotional connection.

做出来什么

In the New Zealand launch, 50% of featured dogs were adopted within two weeks, shelters saw six times their usual foot traffic in 12 weeks, and adoptions spiked 600% — with all featured dogs adopted. The work won two Grand Clios at the 2025 Clio Awards and the Cannes Lions 2024 Outdoor Grand Prix, and Pedigree moved to scale it to North America.

可以借走的

Every impression became a rescue listing: media budget and brand purpose spent one dollar. AI was aimed at emotional relevance — making real dogs look as lovable as they are — not at cutting cost.

后来

Pedigree moved to scale Adoptable to North America, and Mars's marketing director used it as the proof case for purpose-driven AI: a campaign that generated six times the shelter foot traffic, a 600% rise in adoptions, and every featured dog rehomed. It became the industry's standard example of AI used for emotional relevance rather than efficiency.

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