You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …
The Product:
The Farmer’s Dog dog food
The Promotion:
The Pitch:
We provide mouth-wateringly delicious turkey … but only for your dog, of course. *wink*
A lot of pet food commercials give the vibe that they want people to find the food delicious. That’s only to be expected, though – people are the ones buying the pet food, after all, and since most of ’em want what’s best for their pets, the product’s presentation needs to be something that makes pet owners go, “Wow, that looks good!” (Whether it actually appeals to canine/feline/whateverine sensibilities is a different matter.)
But this ad … feels like it’s doing more than just that. Feels like they might be trying to target a secondary market: people who’ll buy dog food so they can eat it themselves.
Like, there are many different ways to tout the high-quality of your dog food – yet, out of all the available options, this ad decided that describing it as “human grade” was the best way to go. Maybe the intended meaning was that, if it’s good enough for humans to eat, it must be good enough for your precious little dogs. But it inevitably also carries the meaning that, hey, if you want to try it yourself, it’s been professionally graded as safe for humans.
That’d be odd enough on its own. When you add in the shots of the dog food being lovingly fluffed with a fork? There’s no way that wasn’t meant to conjure the image of a person eating a big forkful of the stuff.
And, hey, you know what? If it genuinely is “human grade”, rated safe for human consumption, I’m not gonna judge anyone who likes to eat it. So what if it’s (ostensibly) meant for dogs? Maybe they just like the taste. Maybe it’s cheaper than buying the ground turkey marketed to humans. Maybe they’re married to a vegetarian, and this is their way of sneaking meat into the house.
I’d actually respect the ad if it went whole hog and proudly declared itself a delicious dish for man and man’s best friend alike. But playing coy like this, where they want to target hungry hungry humans without coming out and saying so? Just makes them seem like sneaky sons o’ guns.