The TEMPTATIONS brand, known as America’s favorite cat treat, ventured beyond treats in 2023 by launching their first-ever main offering: TEMPTATIONS Adult Dry Cat Food. However, entering the pet food category, which is over 90% saturated and largely commoditized, posed a challenge.

While tasked with finding a unique way to generate awareness and convince pet parents to try a new food from their favorite treat-maker, we uncovered an interesting insight that one out of every three true crime podcast listeners owns a cat. This discovery led us to the creation of “Catch a Cat Burglar” podcast.

We created “Catch a Cat Burglar,” a two-part podcast hosted by Brit Prawat of Crime Junkie (#1 most listened to podcast for 2023). The elaborate tale told a story about a ‘crime of irresistibility’, masterminded by a clawed criminal: A delivery truck carrying a shipment of the new food destined for a store had been ambushed, and all that remained was one bag of dry cat food, covered in claw and bite marks. Listeners (and cat lovers) across the country were invited to join in on the investigation and explore more details about each suspect on our Catch A Cat Burglar online hub. We left clues in social to try and solve which kitty suspect was guilty of the crime for a chance to win a prize package and a cat-themed trip for two.

“Catch a Cat Burglar” podcast garnered 790.6 million impressions and secured over 15,000 placements. The campaign's landing page, which featured the podcast, attracted 278.6K page views and saw more than 7,400 participants enter the sweepstakes. Notably, visitors spent an average of over 8 minutes per visit on our landing page—far exceeding the industry average of 54 seconds reported by Forbes.

Additionally, the launch of TEMPTATIONS Adult Dry Cat Food set a new record at Mars, Incorporated, its parent company, achieving the number one position in sales for product innovation in the company's history.