When it comes to pet marketing, brands have increasingly bypassed owners to go straight to the dogs (and cats). Whiskas created a radio station for felines, while more recently, Purina made outdoor ads that released pheromones triggering pooches to take a wee on them. 

Now, the Brazilian pet retailer Petz wants to put shopping decisions directly in the paws of furry friends with Pet-Commerce, an online platform that lets them decide what should go in their e-carts. 

When dogs and pet owners go to the Petz e-commerce site, they can click into the designated Pet-Commerce section. It will pull up a selection of product categories, including toys, bones and balls. Clicking onto the various options will then call up videos featuring different products, and the shoppers’ webcams will then read the dogs’ reactions to the goods that appear on screen. If the pooches respond positively enough to something, the site will then place that object in the shopping cart. Final say, however, is left up to the owner, who will have to provide payment information and click the “buy” button. 

Ogilvy Brazil was behind the campaign, with development from D2G Tecnologia and Hogarth. 

The idea "fits in so well with what we stick up for—that the bond between pet and [owner] can happen in many ways,” said Petz CEO Sergio Zimerman in a statement. “We empathize with those who throw their pets birthday parties, those who talk to their pets. The truth is that pet love has no bounds and Pet-Commerce just proves the point.”