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The Big Impression
Pedigree’s Natalia Ball on turning an underdog into a Titanium Lion
00:26:09
Natalia Ball, global chief growth officer at Mars Pet Nutrition joins The Big Impression podcast to talk about how Pedigree transformed a local Brazilian insight into a global business story. She also shares why she is now focused on the next frontier of growth: Connected commerce and making sure brands show up when AI agents, not just people, are making purchasing decisions.
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- [00:00]
A
I'm damian fowler.
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B
And I'm ilyce lifring.
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A
And welcome to the big impression.
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B
This week we're joined by Natalia Ball, global chief growth officer at Mars Pet Nutrition, home to brands like Pedigree and Sheba.
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A
Last March, Pedigree launched a bold, purpose driven campaign in Brazil celebrating mixed breed dogs, especially the iconic Virolata Caramello.
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B
It wasn't just a campaign. It became a movement boosting adoption and challenging long held bias.
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A
The work went on to win top honours at the 2025 Cannes Lions, including the Titanium Lion.
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B
And its impact is still rippling across markets and media channels worldwide.
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A
So today we're unpacking what made it work with the person who helped drive it. Natalia, tell us about the Caramello campaign and how you landed on the idea.
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C
Caramelos are mixed dogs that are beloved in Brazil. They are found on the streets everywhere. They are the subject of meme, street culture. And people just identify Caramelo as the Brazilian dog. However, the insight that we discovered was that this dog is 90% less likely to get adopted than breed dogs. So it is the most popular dog in Brazil, but the most overlooked. And when we learned about that, we decided that we wanted to make a difference and that we wanted this dog to get the position it deserved. And Pedigree decided to champion the underdog and become the official brand of caramellos in Brazil.
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A
You talked about the caramelo. Could you just describe a little bit more for people who don't really know the caramelo and that term, viralata, where does that come from?
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C
Yes, Caramellos are basically mixed breed dogs that you can find on the streets of Brazil everywhere. They are called Caramello because they are caramel color. That's what it is in Spanish. And they tend to be that caramel color, short hair. But there are different ways that these dogs look and feel because they are mixed breeds. But like I said, they are beloved dogs in, in Brazil. But when it comes to getting a pet, getting a dog, they are not the ones that people are going for. They see them as street dogs, not a dog that you have in your house. And the whole campaign was about, like I said, championing these caramellos, driving adoption of mixed breed dogs, not only breed dogs. And we did that by saying that if Caramellos were considered non breeding, Pedigree was going to give them a breed. And who better to give them a breed than pedigree? Right.
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B
And then at what point did you connect that insight to the campaign itself?
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C
What you need to know about Pedigree. Pedigree is one of the largest dog brands in the world. Pedigree feeds more dogs than any other brand and it has been there for many years. And for the past 20 years or more, Pedigree has been driving adoption, encouraging people to adopt pets everywhere. We have had a lot of iconic campaigns, some of which maybe you would have heard, like for example, dogs on Zoom during COVID or the child replacement program, which was a very interesting one. We were talking about adoption in Brazil, but other local brands were talking about adoption too. So we were not cutting through. And it was only when this insight came to us, which was a very deeply local insight, that we made the connection. If we want to drive adoption in Brazil, this is going to be the way in. We're going to make this as big as it can possibly be. Because we from the very beginning saw we understood this idea of the Viralata. You mentioned it before, by the way. The Villa Lata is how you call mixed breed dogs in Brazil. When we had these conversations about this insight, the injustice of this beautiful dog not getting adopted, but also the cultural impact that it would have on Brazilians themselves who could see themselves related in the fact that they were being championed. We decided to go really big on this campaign and not only do just an activation, but actually we are doing this campaign. We did it all of last year and we continue activating through this year. Some of the wage. The ways in which we champion this was actually by creating a caramello kennel club, by creating the first ever caramello DNA testing. And it's the largest ever DNA test done in moths in all of history. Creating a caramello dog show and not only that, putting caramelos for the very first time ever on our packs. So it was really a way to give them the rightful place.
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B
I love how you guys just took it a step further than even just it being a campaign and you actually adopted it into your packaging and the whole bit. At what point did you realize that the campaign wasn't only just a marketing ploy and it began actually affecting culture?
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C
Yeah, I mean, this campaign has really changed culture in Brazil, but it was a campaign that was deeply rooted in culture itself, because caramelos were part of Brazilian culture. But when we realized the campaign became bigger than ourselves, Absolutely. When it started driving difference in adoption of caramelos, we saw more than 200% lift of Caramelo adoption just in the first months. And we saw a 65% increase in likelihood to adopt a caramello in the future, which is with this campaign. And then when we started seeing other brands and other businesses, even outside of the pet care category, start using the Caramello in their campaigns, in their advertising, that's when we knew this had really hit culture big. An example of that was Chevrolet that actually launched a partnership with Netflix that launched a documentary about Caramello. And Chevrolet launched a Caramelo or a caramel colored car in a promotion. Other brands like Honda or Whirlpool also feature Caramellos in their advertising. So we started seeing that this became much bigger than ourselves. But maybe the biggest achievement that we had with this campaign, other than driving adoption itself, which was the cost at the end of the day, was the fact that we were betting on the mixed breed dogs actually not being accepted in dog shows, because only breed dogs are accepted usually in dog shows. But at the end of the day, the movement became so big that after only two weeks of this campaign, the federation that actually controls the dog shows called us and said, we now want to move in to accept mixed breed dogs in all of our shows. So that was a huge achievement that we never knew it would be possible.
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A
What's really interesting to me about this campaign is the way you focused on one region, one country, one market, but obviously you're a global brand, so how does that connection to the local end up sort of escalating? So it became this global campaign.
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C
Like I said, adoption is a huge cost for us. And we have been very consistently on pedigree driving adoption for a long time. So we have an evergreen brief that goes out to all of our agencies on adoption. And in my case in particular, I am a strong believer in creative excellence as a driver for growth. And so I put a creative excellence program in place that included building capabilities on creative excellence, but also creating a creative council where the best ideas could come faster to the marketing leadership of Mars Pet Nutrition, so that we could move at speed, but also we could fund the better ideas in this creative council. The ALMAP team, ALMAP bbdo, who are the agency that came up with this idea, presented Caramelo, and from the very beginning, me and the whole leadership team fell in love with it. And so we decided to fund it. We decided to go big and to give it our full support because we knew it had the potential to drive the business and change culture. I think in this case, the important thing about the campaign, obviously it did a lot of good. It's a purposeful campaign and Pedigree is a purposeful brand. But it was not only about the purpose. It was also about driving business results through the campaign. In the first couple of months, we were able to grow 15%. Through all of last year, we moved to grow volume and value by double digits. The campaign really did the job about turning around the Pedigree brand and delivering results not only on the cost, but also on the business.
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B
That's great. And you know you're doing something right when all the other brands out there are copying you guys suddenly in pop culture and everything like that. I'm very curious about as the campaign, like, evolved. Obviously it started out from, like, a social aspect, but as it evolved, how did you decide, like, what other channels to bring it into? What other channels did you try out in this process?
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C
Yes, actually, this campaign started as social first and we then boosted with media. The way it started is we partner with local influencer called Tata Wernick. She loves caramellos, and she herself has adopted caramellos. And we asked her to register her caramel in a dog show because we knew that her caramel was going to get rejected, which it did. And so she posted on her Instagram that had 60 million followers that she was outraged that her beautiful and smart caramelo could not be accepted in a dog show. This went viral immediately in Brazil, and everybody was outraged. This went on the evening news, the morning shows, everywhere, and we waited for it to gain enough fire for us to step in. So actually, we were planning that this was going to take a couple of days, but at the end, we had to act after only 10 hours because this became so big so quickly. And we step in and we said, you know what, Tata, don't worry. Pedigree's got you. We're going to give all caramels a breed. And we launched the campaign with our beautiful campaign video that talks about our program of giving them a DNA test, giving them a show, giving them a kennel club, and giving them everything that breed dogs have. And then after that, we use that video and we boost the message. The video went viral as well, but we boost the message, for example, with connected TV as well as prime and Disney, etc. In order to make sure that everybody had listened to it. But it was truly an omnichannel approach because we use a lot of offline tools, like, for example, the dog show itself that we created, or the adoption drive that we had later on where we were inviting people to adopt Karamel's, and then online tools like Instagram or connected TV or Disney, etc.
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A
You suggested that the kind of Timeline got really sped up really fast. So this thing, you had to act very quickly. At what point did you kind of realize you had a kind of hit on your hands in a way? And how quickly did it escape the local context and became this bigger campaign that everyone looked at?
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C
Yeah, this exceeded all of our expectations. So we knew that it was going to get picked up. But like I said, we were not expecting for this to become so big so fast. And the fact that it appeared in all of the big shows, evening news, morning shows, et cetera, it appeared as well on national media, on print, everywhere, meant that we needed to step in faster. But we were fully prepared for that. So that didn't represent a challenge. It was more of an opportunity. Then the other thing that really surprised us was that the largest dog association reached out to us after only 24 hours to partner to see how mixed meat dogs could then be allowed to compete. We were not expecting this. We were expecting actually that to be a tension point that we were going to leverage in our campaign. And this became so big that they just couldn't ignore it. So it was a big win just from the very beginning. Wow. Now, one of the things that we're seeing is even though this was very, very local, as we have started sharing this work across many other places in the world, we have realized that the insight actually exists in many other markets. For example, in Chile, they have a dog called the Quiltro, which is the equivalent of the Caramello. We have them in Philippines, we have them all over the world. So this insight can travel. The way to activate might be different because you need to localize to the nuance. But we are very excited about the potential of drive more inclusion of these dogs with these campaigns, but also for Pedigree to stand stronger in culture.
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B
I love that. As a dog owner myself and owner of a mutt, I'm glad they're getting their time in the spotlight a little bit more around the world generally. I feel like post Covid in the marketing world today, some brands have actually moved away from purpose driven marketing a little bit. But this is a really good example of it done right. What would you say this campaign like, proved or maybe disproved about purpose led marketing?
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C
I am a strong believer of purposeful brands actually growing stronger, but it only works when it's aligned truly and authentically to the reason for the brand to exist. Pedigree itself. The purpose of the brand is we believe that dogs bring out the the best in us and Pedigree wants to bring out the Best in dogs. The purpose of pedigree is pedigree brings out the good dogs bring to the world. To do that, we obviously do that with our great nutrition. But we do that by putting dogs in houses so that they can bring out the best in people. That's what we do because we strongly believe that dogs make us better. That's why we have been driving adoption for more than 20 years. When you really make this part of your core DNA and it's authentically linked to the brand, that's when it really works.
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A
And one of the proof points of that is the awards that you scooped up last year. Can you tell us a little bit more about how that happened? And that must have happened quickly because the campaign rolled out in March 2025. By June, you're already in the spotlight.
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C
Yes, this campaign was picked up for a lot of awards at Cannes last year. We won the Rainbow, Silver, Gold and Titanium. The Titanium we are very excited about because it's Mars Inc. First ever Titanium. So we're really proud of that. And it's also an award that rewards transformation in the creative industry. And we believe this idea was transformational. We're also proud of, I mean, we've gotten many other awards, but the other one that we're really proud of is that we got the Grand Effie in the Latame Effice and in the Brazil Effice, which shows that this was not only a creative idea that was very strong, but also a very effective idea in driving the business. So you can achieve both. You can do good in the world, you can drive the business, and you can be creative, actually. So it's three.
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A
Yeah. That was great. I love that trifecta. What happens to the Titanium Award?
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C
Well, I have it right here with me.
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A
No way.
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B
Very nice.
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C
Here it is.
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B
Wow.
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A
Well, congrats again. So from that, you know, obviously momentum has come and we've talked a little bit about how it influenced other brands. But in terms of the campaign continuing, what's next? Where are you? How are you thinking about expanding this in Brazil itself?
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C
We want to stay committed to this idea because we don't want to do one and go. And we are working. We continue activating the campaign through all of our channels. We continue doing adoption drives. For example, very recently we release the results from the DNA research that we did. We find ways to keep this relevant. But now I think the next stage is to move on from not only Caramels, but all mixed breed dogs. Because with this campaign, the sentiment has been extremely positive. We got 99% positive sentiment. The only 1% negative comments was, what about the other mixed breed dogs? They also deserve to be adopted. They also deserve recognition. I think that's probably where we're taking it next in Brazil. Then outside of Brazil, we are working on, like I said, this insight travels very well, but we're working on how to localize it in a well that feels authentic for the specific markets. I can't share anymore, so stay tuned because some interesting things are coming soon.
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B
And it sounds like that theme is going to keep going with this idea of all putting mutts in the spotlights from now on too.
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C
Exactly. Yes. This is about inclusion. At the end of the day, our hope is that mutts are shown everywhere. We also love breed dogs. They're great. All dogs deserve to be featured everywhere. So our hope is that this campaign will drive inclusion. Inclusion in advertising, inclusion in homes, inclusion everywhere.
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A
Another thought I had actually is, you know, when you were filming this campaign, did you have any standout Caramello stars?
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C
Actually, I think our biggest star was Tata's Caramello, which we then did a lot of things with with her. I think. I mean, I don't recall very well, but I think it was Mia, her name. But we did a lot with her in our activation. She was present when we did the dog show, et cetera. So I think that was our biggest star.
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A
Oh, that's great.
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B
It can't always be that easy to shoot with dogs though. Even like if they're very well trained, I imagine it's still a different world than human actors. So, Natalia, what problem are you most obsessed with solving right now?
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C
I am right now obsessed with agentic commerce and agentic search and winning the race to that. Because I'm really concerned that in only a couple of years, if we are not winning, we will completely disappear because that's the way all decisions are going to be made. So together with my team, we're trying to figure out how do we stay ahead of that race and how do we crack it pretty soon. So we are ready future. Wow.
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B
And just to press you a little bit more on that. So you're talking about probably using agents on your website directly.
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C
It's about learning. We are very good about marketing to people. We have cracked the code on how do we talk to people. We have the best insights in pet care. So we know how to create compelling stories that humans will listen to. But we need to crack how to market to agents, how to market to a machine because they are going to be Making a lot of decisions for us in the future, in the very near future, and that's what we're working on.
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A
Are you talking about media buying specifically on the creative side of it or the LLM?
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C
This is about how do you make your brands show up in searches that are being done on AI? This is how. How do you make your brands be the ones that get recommended to be bought? So for example, when you're on ChatGPT and you're asking ChatGPT, I got a new puppy. What brands should I buy for my puppy? We want our brands to be the first ones to be recommended if you're going to buy a gift, anything like that. We want our brands to shop and we want our brands to show up in good light. That's what we're trying to figure out and to win. There is a combination of how do you have the right content in the right places? How do you get the right third parties to talk about you in the right way? What are the media channels where you need to show up? How do you optimize your search? It's a very complex way. We need to crack the algorithm basically on that point.
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A
How do you ensure your marketing teams have the right capabilities for success?
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C
Well, that's a big priority for me as CGO is. One of my main jobs is to make sure that we're building capabilities for today and for the future. In my team we have a strong capabilities program where each and every one of the people on my team owns a capability and owns making sure that we get best in class content training and as well as the tools because it's not only the knowledge, it's also the tools in order to do that. But the reality is that none of these works unless you are creating a culture of curiosity. I really want to instill that in myself and in my teams because the industry is changing so fast. The minute you think you have cracked something, there is a new challenge. The only way to stay fresh, the only way to stay in line with what's happening is to be curious. Whenever you don't know anything, go and ask someone who knows. Go and ask questions like really try to learn instead of fearing the change, be curious about the change. And that's the way that we will build future proof capabilities.
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B
Beyond AI, how do you see the role of connected commerce in the pet industry? Are there any other channels, for instance, that you're testing out? I'm thinking of are you testing shopping ads on CTV or any of that?
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C
Connected commerce is extremely important for us in Pet care. The reason for that is because this category is one of the highest engagement categories that there are out there. People are making decisions for living beings and they need to do deep research in order to make those decisions because they have real consequences. And so people are very engaged in reading through rating and reviews and connected commerce gives us an opportunity to connect better with pet parents in those moments that matter most. Also, when it comes to pet care, a lot of our products come in huge bags that are hard to carry. So actually the fact that the convenience of those bags getting delivered at home make so that digital commerce becomes really important in our category. What we're trying to do is to really help consumers navigate the pet parent journey and moving from content to commerce in a seamless way so that they can make the best decisions for their pets and that we are helping them along the journey to make those decisions.
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A
Okay, here's another. What's one marketing rule this campaign, the Caramello campaign, happily ignored?
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C
The one rule that we happily ignore is about keeping your distinctive memory structures consistent because Pedigree has always had a golden retriever on its back. But with the Caramello campaign, we thought that it would be hypocritical of us to feature a breed dog while we were championing a mixed breed dog. So for the first time ever in history, we changed our pack and we featured a Caramello and this made the news again. And this was a huge bold move that we made and that made the campaign even more authentic and more powerful.
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B
Now we have a fun one for you. Personal one. Really? Are dogs better than cats when it comes to brand lift?
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C
Oh, when it comes to brand lift. Well, actually, both are great for brand lift. We actually have studies that show that when you feature cats or dogs in advertising, attention significantly increases, emotional connection significantly increases. This is why you see a lot of brands that are not in the pet care space featuring cats and dogs. They are both fantastic. Cats are more powerful in meme culture, as you probably know, they are huge in meme culture. And then dogs are some of the biggest stars in social media today. Some of the biggest accounts on social media are dogs accounts. So we are lucky that we get to work in this beautiful category because people want to see dogs and cats. I myself have a dog. My dog's name is Bella. She's been with us for three years and she's great. But the more I work in this category, the more I'm falling in love with cats as well because they are so particular and so unique. So, yeah, both are fantastic.
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A
And that's it for this edition of the Big Impression.
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B
This show is produced by Molten Heart. Our theme is by Love and Caliber. And our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.
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C
And remember, you can do good in the world. You can drive the business and you can be creative.
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I'm Damian. And I'm Aylase and we'll see you next time.