Petsmas

The challenge: making Petsmas feel fresh for another Christmas

Like a faithful friend, Petsmas had performed consistently well as Pets at Home’s creative platform for the past two Christmases, across paid, social and in-store. So for year three of the campaign, the job wasn’t to start again but to build on what worked.

But in the snowstorm of Christmas promotions, pet gifting has become a crowded space. Pets at Home wanted to show the breadth of their range, demonstrate great value for money and reinforce their position as the destination for everything a pet needs at Christmas. We knew the campaign needed to feel more connected, with greater visual consistency and stronger storytelling across every channel.

The solution: Christmas is about more than what’s under the tree

Ask any pet owner about Christmas and they won’t talk about the one present they bought for Fido or Tiddles. They’ll talk about the cute jumper for the family photo, the long Boxing Day walk, the treat that somehow got opened before anyone else’s presents. That became our starting point. Petsmas wasn’t really a gifting campaign at all. It was a celebration of the whole festive season. So our creative team set about bringing cat and dog gifting and value together in a single connected story.

One idea, with plenty of room to play fetch

Our designers evolved the Petsmas visual identity so every piece felt like part of the same happy family, from the multi-pet hero to individual dog, cat and small animal versions and value-led layouts. Alongside this, we wanted to ensure the story felt unmistakably ‘Pets’.

Instead of a traditional shoot, our designers built a bespoke hybrid approach combining CGI, motion and AI elements. This gave time to get the details right: the way a product sits in a paw, the expression on a pet’s face, the moment it comes to life on screen. Working in stages kept the Pets at Home team involved at every step. From there, the idea travelled to in-store POS, social and a toolkit for internal teams to keep it consistent everywhere customers would see it.

The results: more assets, more channels, more value

This hybrid production model gave Pets at Home more content from a single production moment, including a teaser and value animations that weren’t in the original plan. Alongside launch animations, individual pet visuals and a digital screen animation for in-store, no channel had to make do with a resized key visual.

The bottom line: a connected campaign, a bigger impact, the same budget

With strategy, creative and production working as one team, Petsmas went further than any previous year. Our people made the creative calls, and the technology helped unlock even more value for Pets at Home.

The result was a bigger, more connected Christmas campaign that gave Pets at Home more ways to bring the joy of Petsmas to life, all within the same budget.

It’s part of the joined-up brand journey we’re building with Pets at Home, from in-store transformation to seasonal campaigns.