Promote Whiskas online platform as the number one source of pet care information by demonstrating their understanding of cats in the real world with a low cost in-store promotion.

It’s just a box, right?

An ordinary cardboard box.

But our target audience isn’t human.

To a cat, a box is a whole new world. There’s something about boxes that appeal to their primal instincts.

We learnt that kittens provided with a box are less stressed, interact better with humans and are quicker to interact with humans.

Even wild cats are sometimes provided with boxes to help them settle in captivity.

People purchasing Whiskas often take packs home in cardboard boxes, but they don’t realise its potential for their pets. We used our knowledge of cat behaviour to redesign Whiskas packaging to make it even more cat-friendly.

Cardboard Box 2.0 has specifically placed perforations that give what was a waste product a multitude of new uses for no extra cost.

Cardboard Box 2.0 was provided with instructions and suggestions for use. Press out one perforation and it becomes a hidey-hole. Take another for a bed. Take the sides to hide a litter tray – vital for kittens who are training. Add a ball and it becomes a reflex builder. Add grass and it helps indoor cats craving for the outdoors. Upturn it and it becomes a perch; cats like elevated positions.

To tie in with Whiskas online platform “Kat Institute of Technology”, it was PR’d as a piece of cat technology and launched at CEBIT, Europe’s biggest tech exposition.

An online video for the box cheekily parodied tech launches, playing on its analogue form

Deployed as a promotion in Germany in May/2018, Cardboard Box 2.0 reached 6.6 million views via OLV, search and social, whilst the CEBIT stunt alone generated 40 MM impressions in earned media.

Activated across 2,500 retailers nationwide (150% more displays than average promotions - traders expanded space due to excitement), we distributed 50,000 boxes.

Our social media presences unaided results, saw people commenting with photos of their cats playing with their boxes – identifying further uses for Cardboard Box 2.0

The whole activity generated a profit ROI of 2.2:1, and Cardboard Box 2.0 is now rolling out across Europe and Asia.