Cat litter can be a pretty dry, technical category, too often relying on new clumping innovation or odor-absorbing science. What the category lacked was emotion, the element of surprise and a brand willing to show cat people that it truly understood the love they had for their cats.

And because this opportunity wasn’t budgeted at all when the yearly content calendar was created, we needed to be incredibly resourceful.

To some, cat litter is cat litter. But LitterMaid is cat litter made by cat people for cat people. To prove it, we wrapped our arms around an obscure holiday to show the internet we were not just a feline-friendly brand, but we truly understood their complicated relationship with their occasionally moody roommates. And amid the millions of cat videos circulating throughout the social universe, we created a worthy new kid on the block that quickly became the top post for #nationalhugyourcatday.

To endear cat lovers to our brand in a way that expected cat litter comparison advertising can’t. To boost brand affinity and increase our following through social media with an idea that was truly shareworthy.

So on National Hug Your Cat Day, we wanted to give the cat lovers a reason to put their arms around the LitterMaid brand with a social video that proved sometimes, love does indeed, hurt.

The video was implemented through Facebook and Instagram. To reach the larger, cat-loving audience and build brand sentiment, we invested $4K to reach 677K people, eliciting 9,700 reactions, comments and shares. On Instagram, to engage with micro and macro influencers, we invested less than $1K to reach 94K people, including @hermione_mn who liked, commented and created her own #nationalhugyourcatday post for her 26.6K followers.

In a 24-hour period, our lightly sponsored social post garnered 878K impressions, 254K views, 2,300 shares and enjoyed a 31% engagement rate on Facebook and Instagram. On Facebook, our fanbase grew 89%. On Instagram, our following increased 490%. On National Hug Your Cat Day, cat people embraced the LitterMaid brand like never before.

And we did it with a simple idea, executed on an extremely humble, total budget of $12,000 USD for production and paid placement.