- Mars Petcare is teaming with mental wellness company Calm to showcase how pets can support people’s mental health and overall well-being.
- The collaboration includes a suite of pet-inspired “Sleep Stories,” meditations and mindfulness tools designed to help users, particularly pet lovers, pause, be present and embrace moments of connections with their pets.
- The companies are also launching a social campaign to unearth touching stories of human-pet connections, which will become the inspiration for additional Calm content later this year.
While it has long been understood that people find satisfaction and peace from their pets, the collaboration benefitted from company-commissioned research depicting some of the tangible ways this occurs. For instance, 78% of people say their pet reminds them to pause and take a break from work, chores or tasks, as a reminder to stop, breathe and reset. Further, half of those respondents say this happens daily.
“As part of our ongoing research into the relationship between pets and people, our research team uncovered the insight that pets are ‘nudging’ us to better wellbeing – but we don’t always notice it,” said David Reilly, global VP of communications at Mars Petcare. “We wanted to shine a light on this hidden role pets play in everyday mental health and wellbeing – and who better to partner with than Calm to do it?”
The content initiative through the partnership will include Sleep Stories categorized under “Pets and their People,” in the Calm app, as well as guided meditations that reflect on the ways pets support mental health. The app will also include a series of breathing exercises that blend mindfulness with the warmth and comfort of pets.
“There is a mountain of evidence that the bond we share with our pets has a truly
transformational impact on our wellbeing,” Reilly said. “We want to help more pet lovers celebrate their pets and embrace the idea that as we care for our pets, we can also unlock ways to look after ourselves a little bit more. We have launched the first-ever pet-inspired content collection on Calm, which features sleep stories, meditations and breathing exercises.”
To celebrate the partnership, Calm and Mars are launching a search to find touching stories of human-pet interactions via social media. To facilitate the search, the brands have partnered with Kinship to set up an interactive quiz of five questions that are designed to identify one of six pet wellbeing superpowers. Users can then use those results to share their stories with the brands in hopes of having those stories turned into Calm content later this year.
“We are searching for inspirational pet stories that showcase the everyday wellbeing power of pets,” Reilly said. “We want to hear about the impacts, big and small, that pets have. Every post shared using #MyPetGuru adds to a global collection of stories — reminding the world that the path to better wellbeing might just be curled up at your feet.”
