30,000 HYPNO-CATS

Title30,000 HYPNO-CATS
BrandMARS JAPAN LIMITED
Product / ServiceSHEBA
CategoryB08. Use of Digital Platforms
EntrantBBDO JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation BBDO JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN
Production 1-10DESIGN Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Masaki Honda BBDO Japan Executive Creative Director
Haruko Kuzuya BBDO Japan Creative Director / Copywriter
Kana Kikuchi BBDO Japan Art Director
Arika Ishikawa BBDO Japan Designer
Ryosuke Funakoshiya BBDO Japan Ux Developer
Shuhei Ishikawa BBDO Japan General Manager
Akie Suzuki BBDO Japan Social Media Community Manager
Kaori Yatsu BBDO Japan Head of Planning
Aisha Takashima BBDO Japan Planning Director
Ayami Morita BBDO Japan Account Supervisor
Hidemi Akimoto BBDO Japan Project Manager
Hiroko Kan BBDO Japan Associate Account Director
Sou Kobayashi 1-10 design,Inc. Producer
Hiroko Akimoto 1-10 design,Inc. Producer
Kodo Nakano 1-10 design,Inc. Art Director
Nozomi Taguchi 1-10 design,Inc. Designer
Kazuyoshi kawakami 1-10 design,Inc. Frontend Developer
Shogo Matsuda 1-10 design,Inc. Frontend Developer
Masato Imamura 1-10 design,Inc. System Engineer

The Campaign

It's only natural that cat owners have a huge soft spot for their beloved cats. One look at the cat's adorable gaze and their owners will drop everything, and happily give into their cat's wishes, the hypnotizing power of their cat ‘s gaze can "blind" them with love.

Creative Execution

We started a social photo competition called "Sheba Cat Stare Championship" to find the cat with the most mesmerizing stare. Owners were to post an image of their cat’s stare with #CatStareChampionship. The selected “Cat-Stare-King” could be turned into a “Hypno-Cat.” We then used the images of the selected “Hypno-Cats” as ads on social. Owners became determined to feature their cats to be in our ads and took part in our #CatStareChampionship. And so, numerous Hypno-Cat images were created and helped mesmerize even more cat lovers who passed them on in turn.

Thanks to the cats, over 30,000 wannabe Hypno-cats participated, obtained 47 million impressions and 4.5 Million engagements, 68% of cat-owning household reached. Also, the willingness to buy for those who saw the campaign increased to 56%. Unsurprisingly, this campaign truly confirmed that if you wanted to escape their hypnotic gaze, then you didn’t have a cat in hell’s chance.

Through this campaign, we leveraged an essence unique to digital, by directing the user-generated images of cats to function as a self-multiplying posterchild for Sheba on social. The main social platforms we selected were Instagram and Twitter. We launched a photo championship on social that prompted the cat enthusiast community to contribute through photo submissions. We utilized the user-generated contents as an ad on social. Our hashtag struck a chord amongst cat owners who wanted their cats to be in our ads, and the campaign had almost self-propelled between the cat lovers in Japan.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

We leveraged tendency for owners to seek recognition for their cat’s adorableness.

Links

Website URL