We created a brand new media touchpoint for WHISKAS; a unique, owned asset located where we were guaranteed 100% share of voice.

We leveraged Australia’s increasing reliance on eCommerce, using the vacant media space on the outside of Amazon’s large cardboard delivery boxes to create a new bond between the country’s No. 1 cat food brand and younger cat owners.

The power of our insight and activation delivered a 4.6% value increase in sales compared to our test region.

WHISKAS is Australia’s favourite cat food brand, however, over the last five years it has consistently lost market share.

Consumer preference is shifting towards the premium end of the market, often in the natural food sub-category and brands such as Purina Felix and Fussy Cat are benefitting.

This trend is particularly pronounced among cat owners under 45, who regard the 64-year-old WHISKAS brand as old-fashioned and mass-produced.

Our challenge was to strengthen WHISKAS’ position in the market and demonstrate that no-one understands cats better than we do.

We learned from experts on cat behaviour that our feline friends live better lives when their owners understand their most natural instincts. These are revealed by their often mysterious and intriguing behaviours, especially when it comes to playtime.

Our insight was that cats are masters of turning even the most basic household item into a world of play. And what could be more basic than a cardboard box?

With some of the world’s toughest lockdowns forcing pet owners to spend more time at home, many were boosting their use of eCommerce.

Our idea was to stimulate cats’ curiosity and indoor play by turning delivery boxes into play boxes. Cardboard boxes would become a vehicle to boost awareness and engagement for WHISKAS.

This would allow us to make WHISKAS more culturally visible and relevant to our core audience of under 45s, who we knew were particularly likely to shop via eCommerce.

Amazon was the ideal ecommerce platform to work with. Not only did it deliver millions of parcels every year, it also indexed very highly among our target group. Thirty-five percent of Amazon shoppers are cat owners aged 45 and below – indexing 138 vs the general population.

In a media first, we would partner with Amazon to turn its delivery boxes into exciting play destinations for the nation’s cats, creating a brand-new, totally unique and ownable touchpoint.

For two months, every large delivery box would be transformed. We would entertain locked-down Australian felines with The Cat Castle, Cat Office and Cat Roller Coaster.

These cat-ertainment venues would boost awareness for WHISKAS, build better connections with cat owners as they shared feline frolics and act as an entry point to discover more about WHISKAS pouches. Frequent shoppers would even get a range of different play platforms for their pampered pets.

We created three unique playhouses for the nation’s cats. All large Amazon boxes would come pre-decorated and printed.

All recipients had to do was follow simple instructions to transform them into the designated playzone.

These boxes formed the centrepiece of our execution, delivering in three key areas:

Awareness: We achieved mass reach via the delivery of 250,000 playboxes to all Amazon customers who ordered large items during May and June 2021. This excluded the state of Western Australia, which acted as a ‘control’ test market. Cross-platform advertising across the Amazon Ecosystem boosted our message.

Share: The branded playboxes also encouraged customers to socialise pictures of their own cats to win Amazon gift cards, using the hashtag #CatsInBoxes2.0. These images were amplified on WHISKAS-owned social channels.

Engage: The delivery box also acted as a creative call to action; QR codes directed cat owners to find out more about WHISKAS pouches.

Independent sales lift studies by IRI revealed an ROI of $3.79 compared to the control market.

This translated to a value uplift of 4.6%, far exceeding the benchmark for average uplift delivered by pet food advertising of 1.8%.

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

Not only did we drive sales, 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 who ordered during the same period.

We made WHISKAS more visible and more relevant through play. That’s the power of a brown cardboard delivery box.