WHISKAS® is the number 1 cat food brand in Australia, however, in recent times, younger cat owners (under 45s) have been turning to boutique cat food brands believing it would please their cats more.

Our challenge was to shake off its nostalgic perception, and revitalise WHISKAS® for a new generation by showing them that no-one understands cats better than WHISKAS®.

In doing so, we needed to exceed a value uplift in sales of 1.8% over the campaign period (which is the pet food category benchmark in Australia).

We realised that to connect with a digital savvy audience,we needed to boost cultural relevance,increase perceived value and capture hearts.

WHISKAS® cat experts say that pets live better lives when the owner understands a cat’s most natural instincts.These can be seen in their often mysterious and intriguing behavior when it comes to playtime.It’s often the most unexpected things that cats will play with.

With COVID-19 restrictions forcing pet owners to spend more time at home,Australia had some of the world’s toughest lockdowns–many were also boosting their eCommerce usage.

Our insight was that cats are masters of turning even the most basic delivery box into a world of play.

They hide in them

Pounce from them

Sleep in them

We vowed to improve the feline play experience that eCommerce could provide.

Our idea was to arouse cats' curiosity and stimulate indoor play by turning Amazon delivery boxes into Cat Play boxes.

We would transform ordinary brown boxes into exciting play destinations. The Amazon delivery box would become a vehicle to engage with the under 45s, who are more likely to shop via ecommerce.

Amazon Australia was the purr-fect partner.Not only did it deliver hundreds of thousands of parcels every year, but it also offered high reach. 35% of Amazon shoppers are cat owners aged 45 and below – indexing 138 compared to the general population (source Roy Morgan). Amazon Australia is also a rapidly growing channel for Mars Pet Food.

So in a media first, WHISKAS® partnered with Amazon Australia over 2 months to bring joy to cat lovers by turning 3 of their large box sizes into WHISKAS® Cat Play Boxes.

3 box designs were created, each with cut-out guidelines making them easy to assemble. Cats were invited to play in a Cat Castle, Cat Office and Cat Roller Coaster!

The cat-ertainment venues formed the centrepiece of our execution, delivering in three key areas:

Awareness: We achieved mass reach via the delivery of hundreds of thousands of playboxes to all Amazon Australia customers who ordered large items during May/June 2021 in Australia (but not in Western Australia which was our ‘control’ test market). The partnership also provided cross platform advertising opportunities within the Amazon Ecosystem.

Engage: The boxes weren’t just a play thing for the cats, they also acted as an entry point to find out more about WHISKAS® on the Amazon Australia branded store page - accessed via a QR code on the box.

Share: The branded store page encouraged customers to socialise pictures of their own cats in WHISKAS play boxes to win Amazon gift cards - via #CatsInBoxes2.0. These were further amplified on WHISKAS owned social channels.

Independent sales lift studies by IRI revealed an ROI of $3.79 compared to the control market over the 2-month campaign period (May/June 2021).

This translates to a value uplift of 4.6%, which far exceeded the benchmark for pet food (1.8%) in Australia.

In addition, we saw a 70% uplift in Whiskas sales on Amazon during the campaign.

Not only did we drive sales, but we also changed attitudes. Surveys of all those who received a Whiskas Amazon box revealed a 5% increase in brand consideration compared with a control group of people who ordered in the same time period.