Kitbull - An Influential Pixar Marketing Piece

I was scrolling through Facebook today for no particular reason and came across an article written about Kitbull, the new Pixar animated short film. As a fan of Pixar’s short films, I began to watch the 9-minute video even though I had work to be doing. Typically, Pixar films are feel-good animations less than 10 minutes long. Bao, which was about amending a mother-son relationship, won an Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards for best animated short film. The new one, Kitbull, caught me off guard with a darker, scarier topic: animal abuse. Due to its change in theme, I saw it more as a marketing piece rather than a story for pure entertainment.

Watch the film it’s great!!! But to briefly summarize the film, the video begins with a small, black cat. A pit bull is introduced and the cat is terrified which is the common reaction of most humans as well to this type of dog. However, the dog is just curious and wants to play shown through the way he bends down closer to the stray cat with its back end in the air.

At this point, it seems like the film will be about this cat and dog fighting, until the audience sees the dog physically kicked from the house, cut up and bloody. From there, the homeless cat empathizes with the dog and they form a friendship resulting in the cat helping the dog escape right before its owner returns for more. It ends with the cat and dog reluctantly accepting another human’s love and she adopts them. It promotes adoption of rescued animals and raises awareness of animal abuse which are the film’s overall objectives as a marketing piece.

Pixar has a strong following in its movies creating a target market of families. They produce content that the entire family would enjoy but mostly appealing to children (ages 3-14). However, the Pixar short films take on a slightly older target market from around ages 15 to 35 as they take on slightly more mature content. This group is also more likely to find the short films on the internet where they most often circulate although they are shown to the younger target market as well before movies played in theaters. There is also a slightly older target market for short films because many children grew up watching Pixar and these young adults now come back due to nostalgia. I am 21 and trust me, I was very excited for Incredibles 2.

Pixar’s insight is that they can use their loyal following and excellent animation to tell stories to change people’s minds. They make their audience cry then wrap it all up with a happy ending. A lot of animal abuse awareness campaigns utilize scary statistics and sad stories with no happy endings. Typically, lists of reasons are given to promote adoption. These are all true, but may not be as effective in changing the audience’s mind. The fact that it is also animation allows Pixar to capture the cat and dog’s emotions through their eyes which its audience can better relate to. We empathize with them when they are scared, lonely, and hurt, and so the audience becomes more inspired to help.

Pixar’s brand positioning is that their content always has a message and a purpose. Most are more light-hearted than Kitbull, but Pixar’s short film audience has an idea of what to expect. Pixar’s main competition is Illumination Entertainment (the Minion movies) and DreamWorks Animation (How to Train Your Dragon and Shrek). Pixar focuses more on purpose and uses excellent storytelling skills to get the message across setting them apart from its competitors.

Kitbull is now viral. Due to capturing the hearts of so many people, everyone is sharing and talking about it. It has fulfilled its objectives to raise awareness about adoption and animal abuse seeing how both play out in this story. Audiences are inspired to give this happy ending to real animals by learning more and adopting rescued animals.

Strengths to Kitbull include that, as far as I have seen, no other animal abuse marketing campaign has been done like this. It truly captures the animal’s emotions and the audience is captivated. Through storytelling, people can learn about the serious issue of animal abuse and a possible way to help through a memorable happy ending. It also fights back on the negative stereotype of pit bulls which I think is a strength. Certain states want to ban the dog, and some people despise them through associating violence with them. Pit bulls who have attacked have gained national attention, and true, if the dog is not raised correctly, they can be dangerous. But with the right care they can be the sweetest pets. The videos of pit bulls loving their human babies warm by heart. They have an instinct to protect, and they will love that baby. Pixar choosing a pit bull to be adopted and loved fights that stereotype.

As for its weaknesses, no information is tagged along with it like a normal marketing piece. Often, a statistic or call to action at the end ties it all together. But this marketing piece is meant to be a story so I think it is okay that it is not included. Another weakness could be that audience members may see the short film as purely for entertainment rather than. In this case, the film would lose its meaning and not cause any change.