Purina Heavily Markets a Lightweight Product

St. Louis — Scooping cat litter isn’t fun, but it’s not the only negatively perceived chore associated with the product. According to a survey conducted in June 2013 by Nestlé Purina PetCare Co., 27% of cat owners dread carrying new packages of cat litter because of their weight. The survey was conducted for Purina’s Tidy Cats brand through an online panel and survey technology provider Toluna Global, Wilton, Conn.To address the problem, Tidy Cats developed a new cat litter product that is 50% lighter than traditional scooping cat litter, along with a go-to-market strategy and integrated campaign involving “more research than we’ve ever done on a merchandising solution” and “unprecedented merchandising support” from retailers, according to senior brand manager Joe Chatman.The merchandising displays for Tidy Cats Lightweight 24/7 Performance litter – including full/half pallets and endcaps – featured specially sized containers of traditional cat litter and the new product side-by-side with messages such as “Lift it to believe it” and “Love at first lift.” Messaging was intended to “trigger disbelief” about the new product’s weight and challenge shoppers to compare. The design needed to withstand “hundreds of people coming up and doing a lift test” over a period of three to four months, says Bill Kambol, senior display and merchandising designer, technical packaging, Nestlé Purina.“From our research, we knew the lift test was important, so we almost dare people to pick it up,” says Chatman. In virtual testing, shoppers were 75% more likely to purchase the product after conducting the lift test at shelf.The product launched in mid-September 2013 at select retailers (Target, Walmart and Sam’s Club) to leverage “first-mover advantage” and a “test-and-learn approach” prior to the nationwide rollout in March 2014, Chatman says.The campaign kicked off Sept. 22 with a 60-second TV spot titled “Epic Toss” that aired during the Primetime Emmys. In it, folks are “so surprised by the lightweight nature of the product that they just have to share” by tossing the product to one another, Chatman says.A video on Tidy Cats’ YouTube channel makes the same point, showing shoppers’ hidden-camera reactions when they first encounter the product in a retail environment, tossing it to a sales associate when prompted and, of their own accord, lifting and pumping the container over their heads, dumbbell-style.Print and digital ads, PR support and a money-back guarantee rounded out the campaign, which was preceded by activity in social media and the blogosphere to “generate buzz before the product hit shelves,” Chatman says.Anticipating that people might be “skeptical that the product could be lightweight without sacrificing performance, we addressed those concerns in all consumer communications” that were evaluated by focus groups, Chatman says. “The tagline ‘All the strength, half the weight’ reinforces that it works.”The merchandising displays went through several iterations, followed by testing in Nestlé’s Retail Innovation Center and some final tweaking prior to launch. “The first version utilized a round (spherical) container for the lift test, but they were not manufacturable on a large scale,” Kambol says.The technical packaging team then sought out “an existing vessel we could just fill,” Kambol says. “We ended up with a pinch-grip jug. Our next challenge was finding the right security tether to make sure it didn’t disappear.”The tether and structural elements of the display proved to work effectively in Retail Innovation Center studies, but other changes were made based on observations and feedback “to make sure the copy could be read,” Kambol says.Great Northern Corp., Racine, Wis., engineered the display structures and manufactured and printed the corrugate components. Ryan Partnership, Chicago, designed the graphics. Nestlé Purina’s internal creative communications and design agency, CheckMark, developed packaging and PR strategy.Other partners included the New York-based advertising firm Avrett Free Ginsberg; Resource, Columbus, Ohio, for digital elements; and Cone Communication, Boston, for PR support.