Mental health: Brazilian brand promises friendship to users of their AI tool

Leading dog food brand PEDIGREE® has steered the notion of artificial intelligence (AI) tackling loneliness into a new channel: This AI-driven initiative, promoted by Brazil's influencer Felca, made a splash by promising a friend to whoever used it.... The reveal was that the AI tool involved is for connecting people with dogs in need of a home, reinforcing the brand’s longtime commitment to responsible adoption. "Melhoramigo.ia is a platform that uses a welcoming conversational experience to help people find dogs available for adoption at nearby NGOs. Not only does it help users search for animals, the tool provides a 'compatibility test' between the would-be adopter and available dogs, based on questions that gauge the user’s personality to find the dog that best fits their lifestyle," says PEDIGREE®. Critiquing AI friendships while simultaneously creating an AI tool to achieve them, this campaign deliberately uses the language of the big techs to draw a contrast between artificial intelligence and real life, making the point that nothing can compare with the love shared by a human and a dog. Pet parents won't be surprised to hear that tudies from the Waltham Petcare Science Institute, a Mars Petcare research hub with a 60-year track record and over 600 published scientific papers, show that 86% of people say that pets positively impact their mental health, 69% say pets help reduce stress and anxiety, and 63% consider them to be true friends. “The bond between people and dogs brings all sorts of benefits, from the joy of being greeted at the front door to the judgment-free companionship and unconditional affection they provide,” says Ricardo Marinho of PEDIGREE® at Mars Pet Nutrition Brasil. “In a world that puts a premium on well-being and authentic relationships, we used AI to lend even more visibility to a cause we’ve been supporting for 17 years with the program PEDIGREE® Adotar é Tudo de Bom, which has already helped over 88,000 animals find a home.”

Keywords: PEDIGREE® Best Friend AI, Pedigree Brasil, responsible dog adoption, melhoramigo.ia, animal welfare, strays, AlmapBBDO