A scene from one of Rover.com's new TV ads.
A scene from one of Rover.com’s new TV ads.

Online dog sitting service Rover.com is looking to lap up new customers as the summer travel season kicks into high gear. The Seattle company, founded by Madrona Venture Group’s Greg Gottesman and led by former aQuantive exec Aaron Easterly, just unveiled a new set of TV commercials designed to raise the awareness of the online marketplace that matches pet sitters with dog owners.

“We’ve had a lot of success with TV before, but we wanted to create some new spots in time for summer and we’re excited about the opportunity to air them on OWN during the new docu-series, Operation Change,” said Rover.com spokeswoman Brandie Gonzales. “We’ve found that once people hear about Rover and understand how it works they love the concept and think it is a wonderful option for dog parents.”

Here’s one of the new ad units which debuted Monday night on the Oprah Winfrey Network.


And here’s another one:


It is a bit unusual for a company at Rover’s stage to engage in TV advertising, but don’t forget that CEO Aaron Easterly cut his teeth in the advertising business. Even so, the company, which competes against Santa Monica, Calif.-based DogVacay, is not saying how much it is spending on the campaign.

The company, which won Startup of the Year at this year’s GeekWire Awards, raised $12 million in fresh funding in April from Menlo Ventures and others. It now has 25,000 pet sitters in its marketplace.

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