Ads for rescue animals tend to be sad. Making rescue animals needy. Not this one. Rescue Is Our Favourite Breed by FCB Inferno for animal charity, Battersea, champions the imperfections of rescue pets in a commercial with a rock ‘n’ roll beat and cuteness factor times 100. Every animal is shown as bursting with personality, with character, quirks and lots to give.

Sharon Jiggins, executive vice president at FCB Inferno, stated, “With Rescue Is Our Favourite Breed, we joyfully celebrate rescue pets as individuals, portraying them as heroes not victims and showing rescue pets as the best pets, who all deserve a second chance and a happy home. In doing so we want to fundamentally change perceptions by elevating rescue to a breed in its own right.

“We want people to get behind the campaign message of Rescue Is Our Favourite Breed by celebrating and elevating rescue, whil tackling misconceptions along the way. A driver for this will be the use of the hashtag #RescueIsMyFavouriteBreed across all campaign and social media, encouraging existing rescue owners to embrace and use it.”

The film was directed by two-time BAFTA and two-time Emmy award winner, Mateo Willis (Blue Planet 2, Planet Earth 2, Frozen Planet, Human Planet and Dynasties), and produced by Annex with post-production from Framestore. All of the animal cast featured in the films are rescues. The OOH creative was shot by photographer, David Wren.

Rescue Is Our Favourite Breed made its TV debut on The X-Factor: Celebrity and is running in 60- and 30-second versions on ITV’s Sandition, Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs and Long Lost Family. 10-second contextual spots are also being placed across Channel 4’s flagship programmes such as Gogglebox, The Great British Bake-Off Extra Slice, Countdown and Sunday Brunch, supported by digital OOH at Waterloo station.

The film also positions rescue pets the pet of choice. Battersea research shows that when considering a pet, while 92% of people say they believe rescue is the right thing to do, when the time comes to get a new pet, many choose to go online and search for a specific breed instead. And it campaign overcomes the pervading fear of the unknown when it comes to rescue pets. An MHM Segmentation population survey showed that there is a general misconception that animal shelters are full of damaged, sad animals. 52% of people said that the animals in rescue centres often have health or behaviour problems.

Claire Horton, Battersea’s chief executive, noted, “Even though one in four dogs and cats are rescues, you’re still more likely to hear about French Bulldogs or Labrador’s being the nation’s favourite pets. Our preoccupation with breed is fuelling a ruthless pet trade based on looks alone – one that can sadly put profit before animal welfare.”

“With this campaign Battersea is setting out to increase the visibility of rescue animals, to show they’re more common than you think and are in homes across the nation. They’re the most rewarding, responsible choice for a pet, and we’re encouraging all generations of animal lovers to think rescue first.”

With only 25% of dog and cat owners going on to rehome a rescue pet despite 63% of people saying they are likely to rehome from a rescue, there is evidently some work to do in challenging the barriers to adoption. To encourage potential pet owners to be more open to rescue pets and look beyond certain breeds, Battersea has removed breed filters from its own online animal galleries. Initial tests have shown that when visitors to the site were not given the option to filter by breed, they viewed more animal profiles, and a higher percentage of them went on to apply to rehome a dog or cat.

Mateo Willis added, “I once had a rescue dog from Battersea so I already had great respect for the work they do. The challenge was to connect the audience to the cats and dogs. In every frame the energy and character of these animals needed to shine through. I’m proud to say we’ve achieved this.

“For the commercial to work we needed a great cast. These animals were the perfect improv actors; engaged, present, completely authentic and happy to work off-script. They were a great showcase for what a rescue pet has to offer.”