AlmapBBDO & Pedigree: Toys to bring happiness back to people with depression

Throw anything into the distance – a stick, a ball, a toy – and a dog will bring it back. Joyfully.

AlmapBBDO’s creatives realised that this was a wonderful analogy for the joy that dogs can bring to people with depression. According to the World Health Organization (WHO)’s 2017 study, 5.8% of Brazilians suffer from depression.

It’s common for them to think that life has no meaning and that whatever they’ve lost will never come back. Many of those with depression are ready to give up on hope and throw away their will to go on but eventually find love and happiness brought back to them in a very simple way: the presence of a dog in their lives.

The agency has created both an animated short telling a beautiful, poetic story, and a line of fetch toys with the words, love, happiness, life, and hope written on them. These were sent out to influencers and people who had recently been through a difficult experience. Whenever one of them threw happiness away, for example, their dog would bring it back.

“Adopting an animal is an act of shared love,” stated Gabriela Faria, marketing director for Pedigree in Brazil. “The adopter also receives a number of benefits in exchange. Studies from the Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition, for example, show that pets can benefit your health, reduce stress, improve senior citizens’ quality of life, and help children’s development.”