Big Lots Aims For Viral Success With Focus Group of Cats and Dogs

Want viral success? Using cats and dogs almost guarantees it. Now this O'Keefe Reinhard & Paul-created work for Big Lots hasn't quite reached viral success yet but give it time. It's only been two days.

The brand gathered together a collection of cats and dogs (Pork Chop, Boots, Bianca, Tabitha) for a focus group session during which various pet merchandise was tested.

Of the creative approach, OKRP Creative Director said, "We realized that instead of scripting this, it would be so much more fun to let pets be pets, and get really good improvisers to react in real time to whatever those animals are doing. And because you have these human facilitators in the room with the pets, they get to do the heavy lifting around uncovering the quality of the products without the event feeling commercialized. The result feels like a genuine discovery of the products."

And that approach worked. Everything flows naturally. Yes, if you can look closely, you realize there's a trainer off camera but the animals (and the humans) do great job at their parts.