Advertisement- Dogs Make Better Pets

Dogs Make Better Pets

Could you imagine a rhinoceros as a pet? You could attempt to attach a leash to this six-foot, 8000-pound mammal. Even if you manage this fantastic task where do you take it for a walk? Where exactly do you house this enormous animal? How about a bore or an ostrich? I highly doubt that would taking a pet bull to the park to fetch a Frisbee is even legal. That idea is exactly what Pedigree did for their commercial during the 2009 Super Bowl. They brought together images of people and their ridiculous pets. If you assume that most people who have pets like dogs and do these activities then the examples that were given would be very effective. The advertisement was a great example why dogs really do make better pets.

When thinking of the image in the commercial of a rhino running through a living room and wrecking everything in its path it brings home the idea that they would make a bad pet. Rhinos weigh anywhere from 400 to 8000 pounds and are anywhere from 4 ½ feet to six feet tall. Just the enormity of this animal would deter me from wanting one as a pet. I wouldn't need to go into too much thought of feeding it 133 pounds of foliage per day or even where I would put that much food. A dog of average size running to you through the living room wouldn’t knock down two walls and eliminate all the furniture in your house. A rhino would do exactly that. Besides seeing this image and thinking how impractical a pet would make I wondered how exactly the rhino made it through the door in the first place.
I noticed in the advertisement that the house is decorated as if this person really had a rhino. With pictures of herself and her rhino just like a person who owned a dog would do. This was also very effective.

This advertisement is targeting people who like pets. That is the only specific that I can see because there are all different people in the ad. Different race, gender, age to me means that the only type of people that Pedigree is targeting is person that like, have, or want a pet. It is supposed to be common knowledge that “dog is man’s best friend”. The images of the people playing with their pets are images that you see every day. A person walking their dog and playing fetch with a dog is common. I think that by introducing images that are commonplace like a pig instead of a dog riding in a car would make you automatically think of a dog and the idea would be catchy.

Pedigree’s advertisement is trying to get people to adopt dogs. By giving examples of the things that people normally do with dogs but showing different animals in the place of a dog they effectively show how a dog is better. For a person who is in the market for a new pet it would work it would show how universal dogs are. The person watching the ad can replace the images with the image of a dog and it would be very effective.
The ostrich would out run the mailman in no time since ostriches can run up to 46 miles per hour and the average human can not. I do not have the space to house an ostrich. They need a fenced area of 200 square yards of space to run around they can’t be kept in a house. The ostrich could probably be fed easily enough but housing it would be another matter. The can weigh up to 330 pounds and usually require a very large running space with specialty fencing to keep them contained. Also they can live up to 70 years in captivity so if you decide to get an ostrich when you are fifty it could easily out live you.

Some animals should not become domesticated pets like the rhino, ostrich, boar, and bull. The behaviors, size, and even smells are things that you can’t change. I do not believe that anyone has ever been able to successfully teach a bull to fetch. The companionship of dogs has been going on for centuries and will continue on for centuries to come. Pedigree has very effective advertisements and this is another testament to a good choice the company made.