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Pedigree Caramelo Turned a Brazilian Mutt Into a National Icon
Pedigree's "Caramelo" is a 2025 integrated film and social campaign created by AlmapBBDO in Brazil that reframes the country's iconic mixed-breed street dog — the vira-lata caramelo — as a legitimate, beloved national breed worthy of documentation, celebration, and adoption.
The campaign launched in March 2025 across Brazil, combining broadcast film, earned media, celebrity advocacy, product packaging, and a purpose-built institutional layer to give the vira-lata caramelo official cultural standing. The caramelo — a sandy-coloured, short-haired mixed-breed dog found across every Brazilian neighbourhood — is one of the country's most recognisable animals, yet historically invisible in formal pet industry discourse dominated by pedigree breeds. Mars Petcare and AlmapBBDO identified that tension as the campaign's strategic engine.
The campaign's central mechanic used the vira-lata caramelo's ubiquity as a creative asset rather than a liability. By positioning the dog as a distinctly Brazilian "breed" with its own character, history, and pedigree — in the cultural if not the kennel-club sense — Pedigree reoriented its brand identity away from purebred associations and toward mass-market emotional resonance. The initiative combined a hero film with celebrity participation, organic social amplification, and a product-level commitment to adoption advocacy, making "Caramelo" one of the most structurally ambitious FMCG campaigns to emerge from Brazil in 2025.
In the United States and across global creative markets, cause-linked pet brand campaigns have grown increasingly common, but "Caramelo" distinguished itself by rooting every executional layer in a specifically Brazilian cultural truth — the mutt as a symbol of national identity — rather than importing a generic adoption message.
Brazil holds one of the largest pet populations in the world. According to the Instituto Pet Brasil, the country has more than 58 million dogs, with mixed-breed animals representing the vast majority of that population. Despite this numerical dominance, pet food marketing in Brazil — as in most markets — has historically centred on purebred imagery, reinforcing an implicit hierarchy that marginalises the animals most Brazilians actually live with.
AlmapBBDO and Mars Petcare identified this gap as both a cultural opportunity and a brand repositioning lever. The vira-lata caramelo already occupied a powerful place in Brazilian popular imagination — celebrated in memes, street photography, and social media — but had never been formally claimed by a major FMCG brand. Competitors operating in Brazil's pet food category, including Royal Canin and Purina, have continued to invest heavily in breed-specific product lines and veterinary credentialing, a positioning that by definition excludes the mixed-breed majority. Pedigree's decision to move in the opposite direction — to institutionalise the caramelo rather than ignore it — gave the brand a competitive lane that no rival had yet occupied.
The global dog food market is substantial and growing. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global dog food market stood at approximately 77.17 billion US dollars in 2025, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 4.84 percent through 2034. In Brazil, the pet food segment has been one of the fastest-growing FMCG categories of the past decade, according to reporting by Valor Internacional, driven by rising pet humanisation trends and an expanding middle class. That growth context made the caramelo campaign not merely a purpose play but a commercially rational bid for category leadership among Brazil's dominant dog-owning demographic: households with mixed-breed animals.
The creative execution of "Caramelo" operates on multiple registers simultaneously. The hero film anchors the campaign with an emotionally driven narrative that positions the vira-lata caramelo as a dog with genuine pedigree — not in the breed-registry sense, but in the cultural and historical sense — linking the animal to Brazilian identity, resilience, and warmth. According to reporting by LBB Online, the campaign extended beyond film into packaging redesign, institutional recognition efforts, and a sustained influencer and earned-media layer that amplified the film's central argument across Brazilian social platforms.
Tatá Werneck, one of Brazil's most prominent television hosts and comedic actresses, served as the campaign's principal celebrity advocate, according to Almapbbdo Com Br. Her entry point was personal: her dog Maminha had been excluded from a dog show on the grounds that Maminha lacked a recognised breed classification. That exclusion — absurd and relatable in equal measure — became the campaign's inciting incident, transforming a systemic injustice into a specific, shareable human story. João Vicente de Castro, actor and television personality, also participated as a public advocate, broadening the campaign's reach across different Brazilian audience segments, as documented by almapbbdo.com.br.
The integrated structure of the campaign — film, packaging, institutions, celebrity participation, and organic social — reflects AlmapBBDO's consistent approach to campaigns with genuine cultural ambition. Each layer was designed to be independently shareable while reinforcing the same central idea. Production credits for the full "Caramelo" creative team beyond the agency of record, AlmapBBDO, are not comprehensively documented in publicly available sources at the time of writing. The Clapboard Score for "Caramelo" is 78 out of 100, reflecting strong conceptual integrity and exceptional real-world impact tempered by the campaign's relatively contained initial media footprint before organic amplification took hold.
"Caramelo" produced verifiable results across commercial, social, and industry-recognition dimensions that are unusual in their breadth for a single FMCG campaign. Mixed-breed dog adoptions in Brazil increased by 218 percent in the first month following the campaign's launch, according to almapbbdo.com.br. Pedigree product sales increased 23.2 percent year-over-year for the comparable period, as reported by almapbbdo.com.br. The campaign generated 237 million impressions, with organic engagement increasing 400 percent, per figures published by almapbbdo.com.br. Reported social sentiment reached 99 percent positive reactions, though the precise methodology behind that measurement has not been publicly disclosed.
Industry recognition validated the campaign's structural ambition at the highest levels. At Cannes Lions 2025, "Caramelo" won the Titanium Lion — the festival's most prestigious single award — along with a Gold Lion in Creative Strategy and a Silver Lion in Brand Strategy, according to bbdo.com. A Bronze Lion in Direct: Corporate Purpose and Social Responsibility was also awarded, per bbdo.com. At the Effie Awards Latin America 2025, the campaign won the Grand Effie alongside three Gold awards in Pet Care, Engaged Community, and Positive Change: Social Good — Brands, as reported by prnewswire.co.uk. The Effie Awards Brazil 2025 added a further Grand Effie and Gold award in the General Products category, according to almapbbdo.com.br.
Taken together, these results position "Caramelo" as a benchmark for purpose-driven FMCG creative work in Brazil and one of the most decorated integrated campaigns in Latin American advertising in 2025.
Pedigree's Caramelo campaign is a 2025 integrated advertising initiative created by AlmapBBDO in Brazil. It reframes the vira-lata caramelo, Brazil's ubiquitous mixed-breed street dog, as a culturally legitimate national symbol. The campaign combines a hero film, celebrity advocacy from Tatá Werneck and João Vicente de Castro, packaging, and adoption advocacy to drive both social impact and commercial results for Mars Petcare.
Caramelo won the Titanium Lion at Cannes Lions 2025. The campaign also received a Gold Lion in Creative Strategy, a Silver Lion in Brand Strategy, and a Bronze Lion in Direct: Corporate Purpose and Social Responsibility, according to bbdo.com. These results made it one of the most decorated Latin American campaigns at the 2025 festival.
Tatá Werneck served as the campaign's principal celebrity advocate after her mixed-breed dog Maminha was excluded from a dog show for lacking breed status. According to almapbbdo.com.br, that personal experience became the campaign's narrative entry point, making the systemic exclusion of mixed-breed dogs relatable and shareable across Brazilian social media audiences.
Mixed-breed dog adoptions in Brazil increased 218 percent in the first month after the campaign launched in March 2025, according to almapbbdo.com.br. The campaign also generated 237 million impressions and a 400 percent increase in organic engagement, per the same source, demonstrating measurable real-world impact beyond standard advertising metrics.
Pedigree Caramelo won the Grand Effie at Effie Awards Latin America 2025, plus three Gold awards in Pet Care, Engaged Community, and Positive Change: Social Good — Brands, as reported by prnewswire.co.uk. At Effie Awards Brazil 2025, it won a further Grand Effie and Gold in the General Products category, according to almapbbdo.com.br.
Pedigree product sales in Brazil increased 23.2 percent year-over-year during the campaign period, according to almapbbdo.com.br. This commercial result, achieved alongside 218 percent growth in mixed-breed adoptions, demonstrates that the Caramelo campaign successfully aligned social purpose with measurable brand and category growth for Mars Petcare in the Brazilian FMCG market.
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