How The Farmer's Dog took the lead with its Emmy-nominated ad
The team from The Farmer's Dog, the goal of their first Super Bowl ad was simple: make people cry.
"There was a phrase in [the brief] that was essentially like, if we fail to make our audience cry that's a failure," says filmmaker Goh Iromoto who helped bring The Farmer's Dog now-iconic (and Emmy-nominated!) advertisement "Forever" to life. "I'll never forget that quote. This was an extremely important motivator, in terms of creativity, to me."
We wanted to know more about the spot Staff-Picked -- the highest-rated advertisement in the 2023 Super Bowl and has been nominated for an Emmy nod (!) We met with Goh and the creative team from The Farmer's Dog to find out more about their fantastic collaborative process, their super-detailed description of the brief, as well as the dogs who inspired the ad campaign. Read on for the episode's key takeaways, or catch the entire conversation below.
| Name of the project | "Forever" The Farmer's Dog |
| Stakeholders |
Teressa Iezzi Director of Creative and Content
Sophie Forman, Director of Brand Design |
| Objectives of the campaign |
Teressa and Sophie were looking to develop an advertisement that represented their company rallying cry, "Long Live Dogs."
In the past, the company been focusing its ads on the small specifics of its products. But Teressa and Sophie realized that the Q1 marketing campaign needed to more clearly bring its mission that is to assist dogs live longer, happier healthy lives to life in a different method. |
| Goals |
* Recreate the Farmer's Dog mission and rallying cry with a powerful, artistic way
* Tell an emotional story that goes beyond the specifics of the product |
| Timeline |
The entire campaign took four months from beginning to end to execute, with the structure of the campaign looking similar to this:
October | Short stage November | Goh shares his pitch with his team December | Shoot January | Post-production February Live |
| Resources | The Farmer's Dog team worked incredibly closely with Goh to create the end product. Goh served as creative mastermind and director for the project as well as Teressa and Sophie were key players in the design of the project. The trio worked closely throughout the entire project, from beginning to end. |
| Principal lessons |
* Make sure you invest in your brief
The story is the most important thing to focus on, not the product * Great work deserves great promotion |