Background
Feliway is a natural pheromone product, available as a spray and plug-in diffuser, which is designed to help control and prevent stress-related behavioural problems such as urine marking, scratching and overgrooming in cats. Available in the UK for 11 years through veterinary practices and specialist pet outlets, the promotional campaign aimed to raise awareness of a relatively unknown condition, create demand and increase listings.
Brief
The marketing challenge was to address the latent need for a cat stress relief product with a consumer audience that wasn’t aware that their cat was suffering from stress; we needed to educate consumers that behaviour which they considered ‘normal’ was actually stress-related. In short we had to create a new market and create demand for that market with an audience who didn’t know they had a need for the product we were marketing.
Solution
We decided to depict feline stress in its realest terms and in a way which everyone could relate to without being made to feel as though they had neglected their cat in any way. We did this by creating a loveable personality in ‘That Purple Cat’. ‘That Purple Cat’ appeared in the client’s first ever national television advertising campaign, was given his own Facebook page and Twitter personality as well as a campaign microsite www.thatpurplecat.co.uk to run alongside the main product website www.feliway.com. This direct to consumer approach was complemented by also targeting the vetinerary channel and retail outlets via a persuasive direct mail campaign including product offers, POS packs and literature.
Results
Post-campaign consumer research revealed that 86 percent of UK cat owners now recognise signs of stress in their cat and are aware of treatment options. Six out of ten cat owners would choose Feliway as the solution to the problem.
