This ad celebrates the messy, chaotic joy of having pets

Pet ownership has soared during the pandemic, so over the past year a lot of households have experienced the joy—and the mess—of having animals in their lives.

That's the theme of a humorous and uplifting new spot from the U.K.'s largest pet care retailer Pets at Home, from agency The&Partnership. Set to the Madness track "It Must Be Love," the ad depicts the sloppy, smelly, unsanitized reality of pet owners and their animals, from a mouse pooping on your head to cleaning out the fish tank, spilled food, muddy dogs, worrying vet visits and more. The tagline is "We're better with pets."

Sweetshop director Nicolas Jack Davies was behind the camera and cast real life pet owners and their animals in the spot. "Central to my pitch was that we use real people and their actual animals—I wanted to use as little animal handling and trained animals as possible," he said in a statement. "It turns out that putting a loose casting call out for ‘interesting people with interesting pets’ is a pretty good way to get hundreds, maybe thousands, of responses. I watched something like 300 casting tapes. The approach was the right one because it turns out casting through ‘animals’ delivers you a brilliantly diverse, eclectic, engaging bunch of people from all ages and backgrounds. Some of the self tapes were hilarious, others tear-jerking—and that affected the spirit of the film as that was the truth we were after.”

The campaign, running on TV, digital and social, is the first in a new creative approach for Pets at Home, which wants to establish its offer as a full-service pet care business, providing veterinary care, grooming, health plans and subscriptions as well as its Pets at Home VIP club.

“We want to show customers that we truly understand what it’s like to have pets as part of our families and that we’re here for them, through thick and thin," added Karen Williams, group marketing director at Pets at Home. "Pets bring us so much joy and ‘We’re better with pets’ is a true celebration of both the magic bond we have with them and Pets at Home’s role to support pet owners, every step of the way.”