Unleashing the potential of ads featuring pets through product congruence and ad immersiveness

Pets are ubiquitous in our lives and marketing communications. Surprisingly, we have yet to empirically evidence pets’ effectiveness as endorsers and understand the key success factors behind their persuasiveness. Dessart (2018) suggests that animals’ presence in ads leads to a decrease in brand attitudes because they are less easy to identify with. We propose ad immersion and product congruence as means to offset the identification challenges associated with animals. Specifically, the research investigates: With regard to ads featuring pets as endorsers, does product congruence enhance purchase intentions? Do immersive ads amplify this effect? What mechanism explains this process? Two experiments and one field study address these questions. The findings suggest that when pets endorse products consumable by humans, increased immersion (e.g., lively outdoor background) is more effective in capturing consumers’ attention and positive responses (e.g., purchase intentions). Conversely, less immersive ads (e.g., neutral background) are more effective with pet-related products. Customer attention mediates these effects. The results, first, provides empirical support for pets’ effectiveness as endorsers, even for non-pet-related products. Second, we provide the earliest empirical support for product congruence and immersion’s roles in ads effectiveness. We provide novel relevant implications to practitioners and delineate future research plans.