Campaign gets at the real poop

When an interviewer asks Rocco the pug if he's an indoor pooper, the gruff-talking pooch proclaims he's a player.

"Between you and me, all right, some dogs are good at communicatin'," Rocco says on an Internet video. "Me, I'm more of a doer. When I've got something to say ... I leave him a little message in one of his loafers. You know, a loaf of my own.

"What, like I'm going to do my business in front of the whole neighborhood? Him standing over me with a bag in his hand? I got my dignity."

Then there's the tagline: "Poop Happens."

No, this is not some underground Web site launched by frustrated bathroom-humor loving pet owners. It's a legitimate "viral" advertising campaign for secondnature brand dog litter created for St. Louis-based Nestlé Purina PetCare by an advertising agency.

Viral advertising is a strategy that often involves creating an online message that's unusual or entertaining enough to get consumers to pass it to others.

The campaign, called "Poop Confessions," includes videos that can be seen on the company's Web site, www.doglitter.com.

"It's a platform to talk about the facts of life in an irreverent and funny manner," said Jonathan Bloom, brand manager with Nestlé Purina PetCare. "This is different than the way we talked about pet waste in the past."

The company began marketing the dog litter in 1999 to meet the needs of a growing number of small-dog owners, Bloom said. While there was a little print advertising to promote the product, he said there has never been a major traditional ad campaign.

Last year, Nestlé Purina started using the Internet to advertise the litter and last week launched a new viral campaign that includes a series of e-mail blasts to more than 1.5 million dog owners. The messages tell readers about the video spots and invite them to enter a "Poop Confessions" contest.

"Bring on the Pooparazzi" the company says, seeking 45-second videos of dogs' confessions about why they leave "special packages" in their owners' homes. The deadline for entries is Oct. 8.

Bloom said the viral-campaign videos are not only less expensive than traditional advertising, but much more appropriate for the target audience.

"It should feel like it was shot in someone's home," he said. "We don't relate to Oprah's dog or Paris Hilton's dog in the way we relate to a dog in our own home."