Caninus Sellus : Dogs in Advertising
Blitz Magazine
Dogs and children—they get us every time. Or do they? All babies may be adorable, but not all children are cute. The personalities of some are lackluster; the cuteness of others contrived.
It’s different with dogs. They don’t have to be cute, in the classic sense. But they pique our interest. Even people who don’t want dogs, or who don’t like dogs, like to look at dogs. We find them compelling.
To find out why this is, and why dogs work in advertising, Blitz spoke to University of British Columbia Professor of Psychology and renowned dog expert Stanley Coren. Dr. Coren is host of the Life Network’s Good Dog!, and the best-selling author of 17 books, including Why We Love the Dogs We Do, The Intelligence of Dogs, and How to Speak Dog.
Blitz What is the psychological appeal of dogs in advertising?
Stanley Coren The same thing that’s appealing about children. Dogs have been designed, by us through breeding, to appeal to us through their juvenile characteristics. They have the push nose and big eyes the way children do, and the response to that—our desire to take care of them, is wired into us.
The dogs that produce that response most strongly are those that have broad faces, long ears—as opposed to prick ears, and a ‘stop’ on the muzzle—where the muzzle takes a sharp upturn to the forehead. So the dogs that most appeal are Beagles, retrievers, spaniels etc., not Rottweilers.
B And the use of dogs in visual communications makes the message more appealing?
SC There’s some scientific evidence of that. One study that looked at the acceptance value of products by people , found that introducing a visual of a dog in TV ads produced a 7% increase in acceptance of the product. It made no difference what the product was. Freud noted that the presence of dogs in his office made kids feel safe, and kept his Chow Chow in his office when he was seeing children.
B So people instinctively respond positively to dogs, as opposed to reacting with fear.
SC Fear is cultural or learned. And dogs are not wild animals. Man created dog. I don’t necessary agree with the DNA evidence that says that dogs have been with us for 125,000 years. But the paleontological evidence is clear—dogs have been domesticated for 14,000 years. And if you remember that we didn’t have agriculture until 10,000 years ago, that means that dogs were with us before we knew how to grow our own food. No animal has had a longer contract with human beings.
So the presence of a familiar, non-threatening dog increases everyone’s feelings of safety and security. From an advertiser’s point of view, that’s a warm feeling that will transfer to a product.
It’s the same kind of rationale that goes behind using children. In general, seeing children tends to produce a warm response. There is a form of learning that leads to emotional responses. It’s called Classical Conditioning—you see a porcupine, you know the spines could hurt you, you feel fear and every time you see a porcupine image you’ll remember that fear. The sight of dogs or children produces the same effect, only with the warm response—whether you put their images with chain saws or perfume.
Advertisers want two things—to have their products remembered and to have positive associations attached to those products. Anything that will do that will work. Dogs do that. Cats don’t. Even though domestic cats have round faces, they still have cat faces and pricked ears. And cats are a bit more threatening.
The use of dogs and children in advertising often seems gratuitous, but it’s not. Because every time you use a kid or a dog, you increase product appeal. It’s the same logic as using beautiful women to sell clothes. Advertising is all about emotional manipulation. You need a jolt of positive association to appeal to the reader or viewer. And it’s not product-specific. Kids and dogs have been used to sell cigarettes and politicians. Some of the first animated characters in advertising were dogs—there was an ad where the dog was fetching Lucky Strikes. But it has to have cultural acceptance too.
B The developmental differences between dogs and children, though, make for a more interesting dynamic.
SC The Super Dogs—Poodles, Border Collies, German Shepherds, are the dogs in the top 25% of the IQ range. They’re emotionally equivalent to 2 ½ year-old children. All other dogs are equal to 2 year-olds. But dogs have the social consciousness of 14 year-old humans. They need to be part of a group and do what the group is doing. They want three things—food, safety and social interaction. They will do anything for that and learn very quickly what they have to do to get it.
B What about cultural considerations? Some cultures despise dogs; the Japanese love mechanical dogs.
SC The Japanese have two issues. One is the fascination with technology. The other is space and economics—unless you’re wealthy enough to have a large space, you can’t have a dog. But the Japanese desperately love dogs.
Then you look at China and Vietnam, where dogs are seen as an efficient source of protein and are farmed for food. Fundamentalist Muslims believe that dogs are unclean. But when people come to Canada from cultures where there’s an aversion to having dogs in the home, their children and grandchildren fully accept them.
B Would you agree that the concept of hearth and home involves pet ownership? Maybe our instincts tell us that a secure and comfortable home must include a dog.
SC The dog is the eternal child, a non-threatening being that we can care for. It also provides unconditional positive regard. The dog will always love you and that is a great thing for psychological and physical health. And people know that—40% of Canadians have at least one dog, and 30% of Canadians would like a dog.
B So in this increasingly hectic, stressful and unhappy society, the idea of a happy, honest and loving creature applied to a product will make consumers believe that the product could contribute to their happiness.
SC Correct. My opinion, based on the evidence of the human response to dogs, is that putting dogs in advertising is beneficial.
Going to the Dogs: How Fido Bred a Brand
There are a lot of successful branding stories to tell, but one of the more memorable might be Microcell’s launching a wireless service, calling it Fido, and inevitably, inextricably, tying its identity and communication program to dogs. How, one might wonder, did this come to pass?
“In 1996, Microcell was launching a new wireless service, but it needed a brand name,” explains Fido’s Director of Marketing, Patrick Hadsepantelis. “The name had to be consumer-friendly. At that time, in the wireless category, we had Bell, BC Tel, Telus and Cantel, and wireless was more targeted to business. Those were very corporate brands that didn’t resonate with consumers, and Microcell was launching a consumer-focused brand to democratize wireless in Canada.”
One might assume that exhaustive studies and surveys were conducted. Nope. The name was found through simple brainstorming.
“The name was chosen based on common-sense criteria,” says Raynald Petit of Montreal’s Bos Advertising. “With Microsoft, MicroTech, MicroThis and MicroThat, we know that using the Microcell name to launch a wireless service wouldn’t grab consumer attention. We needed a name that would really stand out. We looked at a lot of names—plants, vegetables, minerals, animals. Fido became absolutely obvious. We were launching in Quebec, then in the rest of Canada, so the name had to work equally well in French and English, and have a universal cultural appeal. Fido comes from ‘fidelity’, so it means the same thing in French and English. The name had to be friendly, short and easy to remember. The word Fido made perfect sense because the phones, and the service, follow you everywhere you go. And dogs instantly conjure positive feelings, so the name resonates with people on an emotional level.”
Once the name was settled, there was the task of developing the image materials and the advertising. “We had to ask ourselves what the role of dogs would be,” continues Petit. “At first, we said that we would use the name but no dogs. But we quickly changed our minds because the use of dogs makes it so easy to draw parallels with Fido’s services. And we decided to go with all kinds of dogs because there are all kinds of clients and client needs. The reason they choose Fido is that it can be adaptable to situations, as can dogs. If you have a mascot, it’s tough to stay with that. So the decision to use all kinds of dogs was a key turning point in our communications strategy.”
For Hadsepantelis, all advertising messages have to be in line with Fido’s promise of being honest, straightforward, simple, hip and different.
“We’ve brought a lot of innovations to wireless,” he says. “We offered free colour display and voice mail when it wasn’t available anywhere else. We introduced per-second billing, a Free Day package, and the Fido-to-Fido plan, where calls between Fido customers are free. The brand is street-smart and innovative. It’s much more than the dog imagery, but that imagery fits well with the youthful, spirited type of mindset that we appeal to.”
Any doubts about this strategy were quickly dispelled by the huge success of Fido’s first campaign—the Look-Alike campaign, where dogs were matched with people who looked like them, or vice versa.
“People immediately embraced the concept,” recalls Hadsepantelis. “It was clear that we had something very powerful because, in those images, there’s a smart little promise that Fido cares about its customers. Dogs portray that friendliness. It shows that we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and that we’re accessible. The very name has warmth and humour, and that’s important. A lot of corporate brands are nowhere near as customer-focused.”
“The role of the dog depends on the evolution of the market situation and what we want to communicate,” notes Petit. “Until this summer, dogs were at the core of our communications—on TV, print, billboard, packaging, collateral. Then there was a marketing decision to come up with new plans on a regular basis, and we were looking for something new for TV. So we created the Fake President campaign to launch new offerings in a simple way. The core was not a dog, but the ‘president’ introducing new products in an absurd situation. The dog was just in the background. It worked very well.”
Hadsepantelis is quick to point out the dogs are never used as a gimmick “We use different types of dogs because we have different kinds of customers and our customers have different choices of handsets, plans and packages. But we don’t use dogs gratuitously. There has to be a role for them, relating to the product. And people know that. And, now, when they hear the name Fido, they may or may not think about dogs, but they associate it with wireless. Fido is a stand-alone name with very fast recall. We have exceeded typical norms. And every time we use the dogs in messages portraying something innovative or different, we fuel the brand.”
Hadsepantelis also notes that there has been occasional talk of getting away from the dog imagery, but the decision has always been to remain canine-centred. Aside from the fact that it’s not good to fix something that ain’t broke—Fido reached the one-million-customer mark faster than any other Canadian wireless carrier—he says: “When we do campaigns with the dogs, our tracking and measuring is so positive that we don’t need to leave it. The dog icon has helped us build such great brand recognition that we need only nurture it.”
Petit agrees. “Over the last seven years, dogs have become the icon that makes Fido stand apart from its competition. That icon has been the continuity in our advertising—it’s a very important part of the Fido image and always will be.”