*This Blog Post was written during my Masters Degree*

At the start of this blogging venture I had a list of topics that I knew I wanted to write about and I have been eagerly anticipating writing this post! 

I am the crazy dog girl, if you get me talking about my dogs I won’t stop. I will have you trapped while I show you a million photos of them sleeping going ‘they are so cute, look at them!’ and will no doubtably end up just making inaudible, high pitched noises.

So now after all the rambling and the dog photos (see I told you I’d show anyone), let’s get on with this blogpost. I recently came across Subaru’s ‘Let the dogs out’ campaign, which featured a series of dog themed adverts. 

Using animals is a popular theme within advertising. Companies use animals in advertising because by associating their brand with an attractive stimulus it can favourably influence the consumers liking of a brand. Here Subaru have used a Golden Retriever family because they are aware that the majority of their consumers have pets. This means that their consumers will associate positive feelings from the animals and transfer those feelings onto the brand, connecting the brand with feelings of happiness and joy. 

Another reason why advertisers use animals in adverts is because humans have had a long association with animals, from the basic necessity of providing food to an emotional level of providing companionship. Research has looked into the symbolic role of animals in advertising, analysing the use of dogs, cats, horses and birds. They reported that dogs were the most commonly used animal to represent either durable or nondurable products. Dogs are often used to represent warm relationships or constant loyal companionship which is reflected in the advert above, showing Subaru consumers elements that they may come across in their family life. 

Another successful aspect of Subaru’s dog adverts is that they are humorous. Who doesn’t enjoy watching animals doing human tasks? I certainly do! Research has found that humour is a strong emotional appeal in advertising. This is because it can attract the consumers attention which can lead to deeper levels of remembering. The Subura advert above shows the dog learning to parallel park (which even for some humans is a hard task), resulting in the dog crashing into the curve. This creates a humorous tone for the adverts which can then make it more memorable for the consumers. 

We know that advertisers use animals in adverts but what is the consumer reaction to these ads? Research has looked at how dogs in adverts can affect the way consumers form attitudes towards the advert and subsequently what are the purchase intentions. 

This research used the heuristic-systematic model to explain how individuals process information. Highly motivated individuals engage in systematic processing by making an effort to analyse and understand relevant information. Less motivated individuals use heuristic processing which is done by using mental shortcuts to understand information. The research found that if readers only evaluated the messages argument they did not find the ad appealing, but if they process the heuristic cues they enjoyed the ad more. The presence of the dog in the ad suppressed the systematic processing while increasing the heuristic processing, which lead to an increased attitude towards the ad. By having dogs present in their advert, Subaru are increasing consumer’s heuristic processing which ultimately increased consumer’s attitudes towards the adverts. 

What we can take from this post is that animals in adverts is always a win (in my opinion), that consumers can associate our feelings of the animals and then transfer them onto the brand. To end this post on a high, why not enjoy these dog bloopers Subura created!