ASPCA's Through Their Eyes campaign, created by Laughlin Constable, made its national TV debut on February 12, 2023, shifting animal welfare storytelling to
ASPCA Through Their Eyes Reframes Animal Welfare Storytelling
Through Their Eyes is a 2023 public service advertising campaign for the ASPCA, created by independent creative agency Laughlin Constable, that tells the story of animal rescue, rehabilitation, and rehoming entirely from the perspective of the animals themselves, making its national television debut in the United States on February 12, 2023.
The campaign had originally launched in 2022, airing in select test markets before Laughlin Constable and the ASPCA chose a high-profile national platform for its wider introduction, as reported by Reel Chicago. That platform was the nationally televised dog-friendly canine competition broadcast on February 12, 2023 — a deliberate placement in front of an audience already predisposed to care about animals. The thirty-second spot ran across both linear and connected television on the networks carrying the event, according to Ads of the World.
The campaign's stated objective, as described by the ASPCA itself, was to raise awareness of the organisation's national impact and educate audiences on the breadth of its programmes — spanning vulnerable animal adoption, relocation, equine rescue and rehoming, and rehabilitation. Four distinct executions were produced: Full Journey, Equine, Relocation, and Underdog, as documented by the Clio Awards. Each spot maintains the animal's point of view as its structural foundation, a creative choice that separates the campaign from the donation-urgency model that has long dominated animal welfare advertising in the United States. Luke Franklin, VP of Membership at the ASPCA, described the creative concept as demonstrating what the organisation does day in and day out, seen through the eyes of rescued, rehabilitated, and rehomed animals.
Laughlin Constable entered the project as the ASPCA's digital agency of record, a relationship that had been in place for approximately four years at the time of the campaign's national debut, as the agency noted in February 2023. The Through Their Eyes work represented the ASPCA's first national brand television appearance — a meaningful escalation in the organisation's public communications strategy and a signal of a broader shift in how it chose to represent its mission across the United States.
The ASPCA made a deliberate strategic decision to move away from crisis-driven fundraising appeals. Rather than leading with images of suffering animals and urgent donation calls — a format long associated with competitors such as the Humane Society of the United States and Best Friends Animal Society — the organisation chose to reframe its public narrative around hope, progress, and the lived experience of animals that had already been helped. This was not a minor tonal adjustment; it was a repositioning of the ASPCA's entire brand identity in front of a national audience.
The financial scale of the organisation underscores why that brand identity matters. According to the ASPCA's own published figures, the organisation's 2023 operating support and revenue totalled approximately $286.8 million, with total advertising costs of approximately $128.1 million — split between roughly $73.3 million for programme services and approximately $54.5 million for membership development and fundraising. At that level of investment, the creative direction carries real strategic weight. The choice to anchor the campaign in the animal's perspective rather than the donor's guilt reflects a longer-term awareness-building objective rather than a short-cycle conversion target.
The placement strategy reinforced this intent. Selecting the nationally televised canine competition on February 12, 2023 as the debut vehicle, as reported by Reel Chicago, put the campaign in front of an audience self-selected for affinity with animals — a more qualified impression than general mass-market broadcast. The Shelter Pet Project, a separate initiative, generated $14.4 million in donated media in 2021 alone and $568 million cumulatively since 2009, according to the Humane World annual report, illustrating the scale of media investment that flows through animal welfare causes in the United States and the competitive attention environment in which the ASPCA's campaign had to operate. Through Their Eyes answered that environment with differentiation through craft and perspective rather than volume or emotional urgency.
Through Their Eyes is built on a single, sustained creative idea: the camera and narrative voice belong to the animal. Every shot, every story beat, every moment of resolution is mediated through the experience of a rescued, rehabilitated, or rehomed creature rather than through a human observer or institutional narrator. This is not a stylistic flourish but a structural commitment that runs across all four executions — Full Journey, Equine, Relocation, and Underdog — each of which addresses a distinct programme area within the ASPCA's national operations in the United States.
Pat Laughlin, Chief Creative Officer at Laughlin Constable, described the work as an opportunity to tell the less known story of the ASPCA brand, calling it rewarding work in its own right, as quoted by LBBOnline in April 2024. Anthony Romano, CEO of Laughlin Constable, went further, telling LBBOnline that the Through Their Eyes work for the ASPCA is beautifully crafted and that nothing about that work feels like advertising. That distinction — between functional public service messaging and work that operates on an emotional and cinematic register — is where the campaign's creative ambition is most visible.
The Clio Awards recognised the campaign's execution with a 2024 Bronze in the Film Craft category, specifically for Editing, as documented by the Clio Awards. That recognition in a craft-specific subcategory points to where the production effort was concentrated: in the rhythm, sequencing, and pacing that allow an animal's perspective to feel coherent and emotionally legible to a human audience without resorting to anthropomorphic dialogue or heavy-handed narration. The thirty-second format, confirmed by Ads of the World, imposed a discipline that the editing had to honour. Production credits beyond the agency leadership roles of Pat Laughlin and Anthony Romano are not publicly documented in available sources for this campaign.
Through Their Eyes earned a 2024 Clio Awards Bronze in Public Service, Film Craft, Editing — a specific, craft-category recognition across four documented executions, as confirmed by the Clio Awards. This Clapboard Score for the campaign is 69 out of 100, reflecting a well-executed public service effort with meaningful broadcast reach and an award-recognised craft dimension, moderated by the absence of independently published performance metrics and the campaign's relatively contained competitive footprint within a category where emotional impact is the primary currency.
No verified audience response data, media reach figures, or fundraising attribution metrics for Through Their Eyes are publicly available from the ASPCA, Laughlin Constable, or third-party measurement sources. What is documentable is the structural effectiveness of the campaign's deployment. The national television debut on February 12, 2023, during a high-affinity broadcast event, as reported by Reel Chicago, gave the ASPCA its first national brand television moment — a qualitative milestone for an organisation operating at the scale suggested by its approximately $286.8 million in 2023 operating support and revenue, per the ASPCA's own published figures. The prior test-market phase, also noted by Reel Chicago, indicates a methodical rollout discipline that is consistent with a mature organisation managing a significant shift in creative and media strategy.
The Clio recognition in Editing rather than a broader creative category is analytically meaningful. It signals that the campaign's strongest attribute was its production craft — the sequencing and rhythm that made animal-perspective storytelling feel emotionally complete in thirty seconds — rather than conceptual novelty alone. For a public service campaign in the United States competing for attention against decades of established animal welfare advertising conventions, that is a credible and specific form of industry validation.
Through Their Eyes is a public service advertising campaign for the ASPCA, created by Laughlin Constable, that tells the story of animal rescue, rehabilitation, and rehoming from the animals' own perspective. It debuted in select markets in 2022 before making its national television premiere in the United States on February 12, 2023, across four distinct executions.
Laughlin Constable, an independent full-service creative agency, created and produced Through Their Eyes. The agency served as the ASPCA's digital agency of record for approximately four years at the time of the campaign's national debut. Pat Laughlin is Chief Creative Officer and Anthony Romano is CEO of the agency, as confirmed by LBBOnline.
Through Their Eyes won a 2024 Clio Awards Bronze in the Public Service, Film Craft, Editing category, as documented by the Clio Awards. All four campaign executions — Full Journey, Equine, Relocation, and Underdog — were recognised, making it a multi-execution award acknowledgment for the ASPCA and Laughlin Constable's collaborative work.
The campaign made its national television debut on February 12, 2023, during a nationally televised dog-friendly canine competition broadcast in the United States, as reported by Reel Chicago. The thirty-second spot ran on both linear and connected television. Prior to this, the campaign had aired in select test markets following its initial launch in 2022.
The campaign covers the ASPCA's nationwide rescue, rehabilitation, rehoming, relocation, vulnerable animal adoption, and equine rescue programmes across the United States. Each of the four executions — Full Journey, Equine, Relocation, and Underdog — addresses a distinct programme area, reflecting the breadth of the ASPCA's national animal welfare operations as described by the organisation itself.
Through Their Eyes shifts away from the donation-urgency and crisis-response format that has historically dominated animal welfare advertising in the United States. Instead of leading with suffering animals and immediate appeals, the campaign uses the animal's own perspective to communicate hope and rehabilitation, representing the ASPCA's first national brand television campaign, as noted by Laughlin Constable.
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