Pet brand, Bark’s, agency Tombras, and Liquid Death became buddies in madness a month ago, when they launched Ram Chop, the chaotic disruptor, and a line of toys to “keep dogs metal”. Now they’re strutting on the wild side with a fully functional reverse shock collar that lets dogs train their humans, and a human-sized coffin-shaped dog bed for owners who take “best friends forever” very literally.
The Reverse Shock Collar
Shock collars have long been used to train unwanted behaviours out of dogs. BARK and Liquid Death decided to flip the power dynamic. The team built a one-of-a-kind human shock collar programmed to recognize the squeak of a custom BARK x Liquid Death toy. Dog bites toy. Collar hears squeak. Human gets zapped.
BARK tested it on its own VP of brand partnerships, Dave Stangle, putting his dog, Uncle, in charge for a day at the office. Empty water bowl? ZAP. Hogging the couch? ZAP. Not putting enough toys and treats into a BARK x Liquid Death box? ZAP. Rather than tightly scripting the stunt, the team built the device for real and captured Dave’s actual reactions.
The Most Forever Home
Then there’s The Most Forever Home, which takes the idea of being “best friends forever” to its logical extreme. BARK is offering three human-sized, coffin-shaped dog beds for $1 each (already sold out), along with a downloadable Final Wishes document that lets owners request to be buried with their dog and spell out their preferred final resting arrangement.
The work is also part of a broader shift at BARK. Over the past year with Tombras, the brand has moved away from relying primarily on one or two major campaigns and toward a continuous stream of fast, culturally driven ideas designed to move at the speed of the internet. Instead of treating a collaboration like Liquid Death as a one-off licensing or product launch, BARK is using it as a platform for an ongoing series of entertaining, strange and highly shareable ideas.
Where the madness began:
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