Pet Food Concept

Creating a tool to turn dog owners into citizen scientists

Role: Creative and writer

A major dog food brand wanted to regain share of the market by capitalizing on the deep scientific resources of their organization. They wanted to turn their deep knowledge and understanding of dogs into an asset that their consumers would appreciate – and make it a differentiator in an ever more crowded market.

We’d done a lot of work with our dog food client over the years (in fact, I wrote and then oversaw the writing of their social content for two full years). But, in all that time, and for years before we touched the brand, they’d never really used the vast scientific knowledge of their organization for anything other than product development.

When I found that out, I worked with my team to create a concept for how they could put their science to work – both for their brand and for dog owners all over the country – and create an interactive, ground-breaking research project in the process.

We proposed that they create a citizen science project focused on dog behavior – one that would activate dog owners’ expertise and understanding of their own pets, collect data from them that would help create meaningful research outcomes, and share back with them what we’d learned together to improve their dogs’ quality of life.

Unfortunately, due to brand team changes and budget cuts, we were never able to bring the project to life. But it was an idea that I loved working on, and one that at least gave the brand a new way to look at some of their internal resources and how they could be put to work for consumers.