Dive Brief:

• As it grows sales and adds more pet services, Chewy collaborated with creative agency 72andSunny to create a campaign dubbed "Chatty Pets," the retailer announced on Monday. 
• The campaign features Joy, "an excitable, cuddly cat"; Lenny and Leroy, two bunnies with different personalities; Giorgio, a tiny Chihuahua with a sizable ego; and Ralph, a sociable 200-pound dog. The pets engage with Chewy's Autoship service, its biscuit deliveries and the Chewy Pharmacy, per the press release.
• The company said the campaign spots will be distributed across linear TV, connected TV, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and various audio platforms, the company said.

Dive Insight:

When states issued shelter-in-place orders in the early days of the pandemic, pet retailers saw a spike in sales as consumers rushed to stores to stock up on pet supplies. Chewy continued to benefit from the pandemic in 2021. Though the company lost about $40 million in sales because of out-of-stocks in Q1 last year, sales in that period still rose 32% year over year to $2.1 billion. Chewy's second and third quarters also saw sales increases, of 26.8% and 24.1%, respectively.

The company's campaign is a continuation of the #ChewyChattyPets TikTok challenge, during which TikTok users shared their pets' thoughts, according to the announcement. Now, the ads will play upon pets' thoughts regarding "one of your pet's favorite moments; the delivery of their Chewy box," Bo MacDonald, creative director of 72andSunny Los Angeles, said in a statement.

"All of us at Chewy are obsessed with exploring how pets think and how we can add more joy to people's relationships with their pets," Orlena Yeung, Chewy's vice president of brand marketing, said in a statement. "One of the most consistent and rewarding things we hear from customers is the enthusiasm their pets display when a Chewy box arrives. 'Chatty Pets' illustrates the purity of this reaction with a warmth and playfulness that are true to the spirit of our brand."

To help attract new shoppers and retain existing ones, Chewy and its competitors have been adding more services to their offerings. After launching a pet telehealth service in 2020, Chewy last year also created a veterinary marketplace to facilitate sales of pet prescriptions. Rival Petco recently teamed up with Lowe's to launch shop-in-shops featuring a curated assortment of pet goods. And this week, Petco also teamed up with Rover to offer pet boarding, sitting, doggy daycare and dog walking services through the Petco website.