Cats on a Podcast? It’s Another Whiskas Hit

The Whiskas Purr-Cast is one of those beautifully simple ideas you can’t quite believe hasn’t been done already. A podcast by cats – and one that doesn’t just comically imitate Gen Z and Millennials’ favourite media format, it educates pet owners too.

In this episode of the Purr-cast, “Why Do Cats Purr?”, the host – a wise adult cat – and guest, an eager young kitten, explore the title question while sat in front of their mics. Cat’s don’t just purr to show they’re happy – it can be a sound of resting, or mixed in with mews as a request for food. The two cats are particularly keen to try this kind of communication out, and are soon rewarded with Whiskas.

The Purr-cast is an extension of Whiskas and AMV BBDO’s long-running “Purr More” campaign, which we’ve featured on Ad Of The Week before. It’s the most successful Whiskas campaign yet on our Test Your Ad platform, continually inventive and taking a wry, funny and slightly surreal look at cats’ lives. The Purr-cast builds on “Purr More” and takes it into more content-based territory without losing the campaign’s whimsical appeal. The podcast format works particularly well at creating a sense of “between-ness”, the connection between characters that’s such a great driver of emotional response and long-term effectiveness.

The pet food category is a more effective than average one, but that’s mostly down to dog food commercials, which regularly get the top 5-Star score. Cats are undeniably photogenic, but it’s rarer to see their ads score highly, which is why Whiskas’ recent efforts have been so impressive. The Purr-Cast keeps up this form, with a 4.7-Star Rating firmly above the 3.2-Star Category norm, predicting strong growth potential in the long-term, given the right investment.

Where the Purr-Cast really succeeds, though, is on short-term Spike, where it gets an Exceptional score in the top 10% of all pet food ads. That’s down to the emotional intensity created by the ad – basically, the people who like it really like it, a strong sign it’s appealing to cat lovers.

So the podcast by cats is getting viewers purring too. The format is a strong one, with a lot of room for Whiskas to build on the host and guest characters and turn them into a Fluent Device. Perhaps in the future we’ll even see a crossover with the Uncensored CMO! (Chief Mouse Offerer)