It was supposed to be a joke.
Dawson Gunn posted a video of his two black Labrador retrievers, known as Stink and Bink, with pieces of paper taped to their backs. The mostly blank white sheets read, “ur ad here” in plain text. In the video, the dogs furiously wag their tails as Gunn says in a voice-over: “We have ad space available. You can place your ads right on the Stinky, or the Binky. Stinky is $20 per spot. Binky is $15 per spot.” The caption reads, “Dm if ur interested.”
And, boy, were people interested.
“It was, like, potentially over a thousand requests,” Gunn told The Washington Post. “I can’t even scroll to see them all.”
Gunn’s account, Too Cute Labs, started as a creative outlet for the many videos he took of his dogs doing adorable things — begging for belly rubs, frolicking in the snow near their house in Connecticut and wrestling playfully in the backyard. Eventually, as Gunn’s following grew, so did the opportunities to make money. Gunn started to monetize his cute-dog content, while also satirizing the concept of making money off his dogs. He regularly buys them gold chains with his earnings and posts videos of them decked out in their new bling.
But since he’s started offering his “labvertisements,” Gunn’s business has reached a new level; he’s even made enough to quit his job bartending at a local brewery.
Some of the “advertisers” buying ad space on Gunn’s dogs are just individuals or small businesses. They share birthday wishes and shout-outs. A candidate running for the board of education in Prince George’s County, Maryland, bought an ad; so did a man who paid to put his résumé on Bink’s butt, saying in a comment that he “thought it would be just unhinged enough to get some traction” with potential employers.
Larger brands are also getting in on the action.
“It’s a cheap trick, but dogs work,” said Laura Kaye, head of social media for Booking.com, the first large brand to advertise on the dogs. “Booking, as a brand, we like to think that we don’t take ourselves very seriously. We like to be in on the joke. So it just felt right.”
In the Booking.com ad, Stink and Bink are decked out in the company’s logo, wiggling around excitedly and rolling over for belly rubs. At one point, Bink rolls onto her back, crumpling the ads — hence why ad space on her back is cheaper, Gunn jokes in his voice-over.
“Clearly, these dogs are loved,” Kaye said. “And we wanted to be a part of that.”
That was also the appeal for Jacob Costa, a high school senior in Ohio who, in an ad, asked his girlfriend to prom. Bink had minor surgery recently and was wearing a cone, which temporarily unlocked new advertising space. That’s where the promposal went, reading: “Vivian! Stink and Bink think you should go to prom with Jake.” (She said yes.)
Gunn offered to post the prom invitation free, but Costa said he wanted to support Too Cute Labs to keep the content coming.
“I just wanted to send him some money because I like what he’s doing,” Costa said. He has no qualms about the fact that the dogs are currently supporting Gunn financially. “People don’t always hang out with their dogs, so it’s nice to see that. Like, even if it is for content, you’re still making the dogs happy.”
One customer did complain that her ad wasn’t as visible as she was hoping. Gunn said he gave her a refund immediately.
“This is a fun service,” he said. “This isn’t like a full professional ad agency. I’m just slapping ads on my dogs.” Gunn added that people generally don’t mind when their ads are destroyed by the dogs rolling over.
“Most of the time when that happens, people love it. They’re like, ‘Thank you so much, Bink, for rolling all over my ad.’ This is exactly what I wanted,” Gunn said.
Far from typical ads that are pristinely shot and highly produced, Gunn’s advertisements feel organic, silly and a little unpredictable. For some companies, like the shopping platform Whatnot, that approach feels just right.
“What appealed to us most was how different it was from a typical ad spend,” Isley Walker, who leads Whatnot’s U.S. social team, said in an email. “In a world where people are constantly marketed to, it is rare to find something that truly breaks through. This did not feel like an ad people wanted to skip. They chose to engage with it, even knowing it was branded, which is incredibly rare.”
In the end, Gunn’s joke generated a lot of interest, but he’s under no illusions about the sustainability of “labvertisement” sales as a long-term career.
“There will be a day where people are like, I’m so sick of seeing ads on labs,” Gunn said. But until then, he is enjoying the ride.
The post He joked about turning his dogs into billboards. Business is booming. appeared first on Washington Post.
