The Brief: Grow our active food customer base in 2025 by delivering multi-channel video campaigns inclusive of brand merchandising placements that communicate key RTBs of Chewy and Nestle Purina Pet Care (NPPC) brands. The primary business goal of these campaigns was to reach new-to-Chewy cat and dog food customers online via upper and mid-funnel :15’s and :06’s to drive new customer acquisition by showing them why to buy their food from Chewy. 

Insight: Brand, Convenience and Variety are the top drivers of pet food purchases. Specifically, pet parents seek food their pets love AND food that optimizes their pet’s overall health and wellness. Cats are variety seeking and inevitably will refuse their food, so variety is a must for cat parents.

Strategy: It was important that all video campaigns across the funnel had a connective thread that made the content feel like it’s all coming from Chewy. Messaging needed to communicate the foundational benefits of NPPC brand products in a way that’s consistent with Chewy’s tone of voice and visual identity, yet thematically in-line with NPPC’s national campaign idea: To provide pets with an “exceptional” feeding experience through a variety of food formats made from nutritious ingredients that create mealtime excitement. Our creative approach to the work reinforces this brand linkage, both thematically and visually.

Creative Direction: I oversaw creative development of the concepts including pre-visualizations and camera testing for the visual effects in Fancy Feast, implemented AI-accelerated motion pre-visualization workflows for Purina Pro Plan that expedited stakeholder buy-in of concepts and streamlined live-action production and editing. Additionally, I oversaw live action production providing guidance on human and pet talent performance, how to capture key pet actions involving complex visual effects, and oversaw post-production by providing feedback throughout editorial.

Execution: I led multiple campaign executions throughout the year through all phases of video production, leading a team of art directors, directors, cinematographers and editors to ensure each spot was emotionally balanced between WHY Purina and WHY Chewy.  Each campaign is Chewy branded, executed with Chewy’s look and feel integrating key vendor products, RTBs and components of NPPC brands like color, environments, featured animal species, etc. All teams involved did an amazing job and delivered great work. In the end, the central theme of the campaigns aligned with our strategy: The “exceptionality” of Purina’s life-changing nutrition and assortment can unlock an exceptional mealtime experience for pet parents and their pets.