Pop quiz: If you make cat litter, what's the one thing, the single quality you need to be known for above all others?
That's right, odor control! OK, but small problem…every other litter brand in the market passed that pop quiz, too.
In the world of cat litter, everyone is striving toward the same goal. To raise the bar on the most important equity measure there is: odor control perception. The problem is, the mission to "out-claim" the competition has resulted in a sea of marketing "sameness" across the category.
Our objective was simple, it was time for Tidy Cats to disrupt the category, change the conversation and make tangible progress in the epic quest to conquer that key "odor control perception" measure. A measure where a gain of even a half point is considered monumental.
Oh, and, of course, drive consideration in the process.
While the competition continued to focus on product claims, Tidy Cats wanted to take a more disruptive approach. To put a literal face on what controlling odor, or more accurately, what not controlling odor really looks like.
Here's what we knew: Our target's biggest concern is nose blindness—the syndrome where you become so accustomed to a smell that you become completely desensitized to it. She lives in fear of someone coming into her home and discovering that it smells like cat you know what. A situation she would consider a complete and utter "fall from grace."
Enter "Stank Face"—an idea born of an internet meme and crafted into a campaign that focused on her worst fears: Seeing someone suffer the involuntary physical response when something just doesn't smell right.
In a series of short films, we dramatized the consequence of using "lousy litter" (Stank Face), alongside the benefit of using Tidy Cats (Tidy Face).
Shot in super slow motion and backed by an original opera score, we gave her a hyper-focused front row seat to the moment of truth, ultimately resolving in our hero solution, Tidy Cats. The one product powerful enough to "Stop The Stank."
Campaign Highlights:
- 6-point lift in the equity measure of odor control
- The ONLY cat litter brand in the market to show significant growth YOY in the odor control measure
- Additionally, Tidy Cats demonstrated significant growth in 12 imagery categories (out of 20) compared to all other brands that improved on 4 at most (nearly all brands moved the needle on 2 or fewer)
- The core campaign KPI, the on-site action rate on StopStankFace.com, was 10% above benchmark
- 22% relative lift in ad recall in 35-44 demo
- 11% relative lift in message association in 35-44 demo
- 7% relative lift in attribute rating in 25-34 demo
