Merry Chaos

BARK, the global dog-focused brand on a mission to make all dogs happy, has officially passed the creative leash. This holiday season, the humans stepped aside and the dogs took charge. The result is Merry Chaos, a celebration of the wild, joyful energy dogs bring to the holidays and the first commercial in history to be directed entirely by a dog. After more than a decade of telling stories about dogs, BARK decided it was time to let them speak for themselves. Leading the experiment was Mia, an Australian Shepherd Pitbull mix with a strong point of view, a loose relationship with call times and an approach to filmmaking that was, by all accounts, uninsurable. “She came in with a vision,” said Mikkel Holm, chief creative officer at BARK. “And then promptly ate the vision board.”

The creative handover follows a new initiative introduced by BARK’s recently appointed chairdog, Hendrix, after the company announced it is now co-owned by Dogs. Advocating for authentic canine storytelling, Hendrix reportedly made his case during a persuasive nap under the conference table. Shot on location with a human crew and one determined four-legged auteur, Merry Chaos shows the holidays exactly as dogs experience them: wrapping paper as performance art, ornaments as chew toys and dinner tables as complex ethical dilemmas. GoPros were deployed and then chewed, sets were carefully built and instantly demolished and editors were told simply to follow the fur.