Pet owners are a devoted bunch, cat owners especially so. Each type of household pet seems to come with its own well established brand of feed. Dogs around the world enjoy Pedigree Chum, while "8 out of 10" cats apparently prefer Whiskas.
Whiskas in Australia learned that cats were regarded as an inferior choice of pet compared to dogs. Dog owners were able to enjoy a high level of social interaction with their animals, as they enjoyed walks together. By contrast, cats are regarded as largely independent creatures, that sleep 16 hours a day and occasionally deign to grant their owners an audience. Cat owners obviously think that cats make the best pets, and so Whiskas decided to raise the profile of cat owners and their feline friends.
The cat food industry in Australia alone is worth AUS$484 million (£301 million), but Whiskas market share had declined, and the brand needed to find a way to retain its existing consumers, while at the same time converting new and occasional customers.
Whiskas decided that it would create a platform - a cat lovers community - whereby owners could pledge their love for Whiskas on their cat's behalf. Aiming to solicit 100,000 pledges, then Whiskas could use this for future brand communications, "as all those other cats can't be wrong".
It was important that the pledge was simple to register, and allowed cat owners where incentivised to interact with the campaign as much as possible. Whiskas wanted a solution that mirrored the online habits of cat owners who were already using social media tools and forums to talk about their cats.
The online community enabled members to pledge, respond, apply, vote, upload and - importantly for the brand - dedicate five minutes to interacting with the brand in a trusted space. Whiskas would also be able to identify where the largely anonymous cat community were, which would inform the future communications and incentives.
The core marketing strategy for this idea was to capture as many advocates as possible, whilst accumulating information that could later be used within the campaign cycle. Whiskas offered the opportunity for owners to get their beloved cat on pack - the ultimate expression of love for their animal. The strategy was divided into three phases: Pledge, promotion and celebration.
Phase one commenced in April 2010, with an incentivised call to action - where owners registered their contact details and information about their cat in return for free samples of Whiskas food. The incentive program too place in retail outlets, online pledge requests and online shopping sites. Special Adshel panels were created that dispensed a free pouch of Whiskas when user pushed a "pledge" button.
Experience from UK campaigns revealed that cat owners were motivated just as much by "cat fame" as by cash rewards.
In phase two, all owners who had "pledged" their cats loved Whiskas were invited to create a profile for their cat in an online community in which they had to state what their pet would do for Whiskas to win AUS$10,000 and achieve cat fame when featured on pack in February 2011.
Each profile contained a photo, and a short description of how the owner knew their cat love Whiskas.
Entrants were encouraged to let people vote for their cat from a leader board. Social media widgets allowed for easy sharing on social networking sites, and allowed owners to showcase how their cat would look on the Whiskas pack, nominated the winner.
This strategy allowed the brand to collate more in-depth data, concerning pet cats and their owners. Owners also began to strike up conversations on other cat profiles.
These profile were housed in a cat-centric portal - the Cat Club - which contained all the pledge content and form the beginnings of a social network, especially for cat owners. The site carried feline related news from around the world, as well as advice, video content, and product offers.
Phase three saw a selection of profiles featured in Whiskas promotional material, is an attempt to encourage last minute pledges, profiles and voting before the closing date of the competition. When users subsequently visited the Whiskas.com.au address, they were recognised and redirected to their own personalised home page.
Integrated press, TV and OOH executions, featuring the iconic Whiskas purple cat complemented in-store retail teams and social networking and blogger activity.
Online advertising was deployed, as were site takeovers on targeted environments. Cat sites were an obvious choice, but in a fun twist, even some dog sites were hijacked by Whiskas.
Affiliate marketing, SEO and website re-targeting was employed to hit visitors who hadn't pledged or entered the competition first time around. eDM from the extensive Mars database was also pressed into use.
Results
The core objective of this campaign was to reinstate Whiskas as the choice of Australia's cats and therefore increase market share across the product range. The campaign delivered more than three times the anticipated response, with 330,167 owners making pledges. Of these, 48,003 went on to join the Cat Club community, enter the promotion and create cat profiles. The initial target was 100,000 pledges and 20,000 cat profiles. 22% of visitors to the Cat Club arrived from Facebook.
Of those consumers that requested a free sample, 70% went on to register a cat profile, and 80% of those opted in for further communications from Whiskas. Moving into 2011, the Cat Community has generated in-depth data on over 50,000 Whiskas advocates.
In terms of sales, Whiskas pouches experienced 25% year-on-year growth. Market penetration grew 4% after the start of the campaign.
This campaign was shortlisted in the Festival of Media Awards 2011 in the "Best Communications Strategy", "Best Earned Media", "Best Targeted Campaign" and "The Media Effectiveness Award: Engagement" categories.
Whiskas Pledge won "Best Communication Strategy", and was highly commended in "Media Effectiveness: Engagement".