44% cheaper new customers from ads made for specific dogs

Wagstead’s freeze-dried treats had a loyal subscriber base and a familiar problem: new customers kept getting more expensive to find. Every ad spoke to all dog owners at once, usually with a golden retriever in a sunny park. Owners of anything other than a golden retriever scrolled straight past.

The subscribers themselves described their dogs in great detail, in reviews and support emails. None of that detail had made it into the ads.

We split the audience the way owners talk about their own dogs: picky eaters, power chewers, seniors and breeds with loud fan clubs. Casting came first, since the dog was the talent and the owner was the crew. Eleven creators, each with the right dog, filmed one video apiece.

• Hooks that named the dog in the first line: “If you own a beagle, you already know what’s about to happen.”
• The first bite inside the opening two seconds, with no trained tricks
• A deliberately loose brief, since the dogs weren’t going to read it

Cost per new customer fell 44% in the first quarter of the new ads, and hooks that named a breed earned 1.8x the click-through rate of the old park ad. The comments filled up with owners tagging each other, and those new customers stayed: their reorder rate matched the existing base.

The surprise winner was a senior-dog video: a 13-year-old terrier who takes an age to finish one treat and looks delighted about it. Wagstead has since made a softer treat for older dogs, partly because of those comments.