Today is National Pet Day, and Colle McVoy has some celebrating to do on the pet front, having been named AOR for Wellness Pet Company.
Colle McVoy was selected from a field of six agencies that emerged from a widely-cast RFI in November of 2023. The pitch process, including two meeting rounds and a final presentation, managed by independent consultant Barbara Reilly, concluded in mid-February of 2024.
Wellness Pet is the largest independent natural pet food company in North America and includes brands Wellness, Wellness Whimzees, Wellness Old Mother Hubbard, Wellness Good Dog, Wellness Good Kitty, Sojos, Holistic Select and Eagle Pack.
“We were looking for a full-service agency right sized to operate with the speed to meet today’s needs that can also grow with us,” said Wellness Pet Company CEO Reed Howlett in a statement.. “And, the quality of the people at Colle McVoy—the character, intellectual curiosity and style we saw across multiple disciplines—made us feel we were with people who got it, who got us. People we could work really well with for the long haul.”
Howlett added that the true connection to the emotions pet parents have for their pets hasn’t been fully unlocked in the category, but with Colle McVoy, the partnership hopes to speak to the mutual wellbeing between pets and their pet parents. He noted Colle McVoy’s size and position within the Stagwell network was advantageous as well.
Colle McVoy will lean on its expertise in CPG, animal care and retail to cover creative, brand strategy and design duties for Wellness Pet, adding social and earned creative components as part of the remit.
“Wellness Pet has an appetite for disruptive creative,” said Colle McVoy CCO Ciro Sarmiento, who noted the brand proactively shared examples of work they admire across various industries. “They are very aware of how cluttered the category is with sunny slow-motion scenes that don’t reflect the bond between pets and pet parents.”
According to NielsenIQ data, the amount spent on pets in the U.S. increased by 16% from $260 billion to $303 billion between 2022 and 2023. Plus, 54% of respondents surveyed by Wakefield Research in 2022 admitted to spending more time shopping for their pets than they spend shopping for some family members.
“Pet parents just want to do what’s best for their pets amid so many choices. At the same time, people are having fewer kids of the human variety and are investing more in pets,” said Colle McVoy president Jessica Henrichs. “When you combine a massive cultural shift like that with Wellness Pet’s ambition, it’s a playground of possibility for a creative agency.”
The first campaign under the new partnership is expected to launch later this year.