This International Cat Day, Whiskas Transported Feline Fanatics to Purradise

For cat lovers, their connections with feline friends can be more meaningful than human relationships. Whiskas is attempting to deepen that understanding even further with a new immersive experience that places feline aficionados squarely in the sensory world of a cat.

For International Cat Day, they created a pop up experience in London that allowed visitors to experience the smells, tastes and textures of cat nirvana. It builds on the Purradise platform, from creative agency AMVBBDO, which was launched in March this year.

As Annie Argyle, European brand director at Whiskas explains, the experience was inspired by research carried out in partnership with animal behaviour specialist Dr Tammie King at the Waltham Petcare Science Institute. By digging into the scientific literature, they uncovered six distinct ‘cat personalities’, which can also be explored in a ‘Purrsonality Quiz’, to help cat owners better understand their own cats and what makes them happy.

“Based on this, we created six Purradise experiences, from the Pampered Cat to the Inquisitive Cat, which we’ve brought to life through this experiential event to highlight the breadth of personality traits cats have,” explains Annie. “At the end of the day, what better way to strengthen the bond with your pet than by getting transported to their world!”

These cat-centric insights were then translated into experiences that could give humans a taste of Purradise, such as massages for those who want a pampering experience; agility games to catch golden feathers inspired by cat’s love for feathers; a floating station with delicious cakes and smoothies inspired by cats’ love for gravy.

As someone who’s seen the development of all of the experiences, Annie’s personal favourite is Aroma Island, where pet owners are invited to guess different ingredients based on their scents. “I just find it fascinating that the cat’s sense of smell is fourteen times stronger than humans,” she says. “We can only imagine how important smell must be in driving their food enjoyment experience!”

According to Whiskas own consumer insights, a third of cat owners (35%) say cats are easier to understand than humans and four in ten (41%) value their cats more than people. For the team at the Mars Petcare-owned cat brand, this was a massive unlock and showed just how intense that human-feline bond really is.

“If there was ever any doubt in how emotionally connected cats and cat parents are, I think this study has brought clarity for everyone,” says Annie. “Pets play such an important role in our lives and their role has evolved from being just companions to being an integral part of the family – as our research shows that more than half of pet parents think of their pets as a member of their family. Pets are part of our everyday lives and are therefore key milestone moments within the family as well as playing a huge role in supporting our mental wellbeing.”

The experience was produced by Heaps and Stacks, with PR from Weber Shandwick, based on the creative campaign from AMV BBDO. Annie explains that one of the key discussions throughout the development process was of how to balance entertainment and insight.

“The critical aspect in crafting this experience was to ensure we are creating a human experiential event which is however undoubtedly rooted in cat-centric insights,” she says. “We wanted to make sure that this event provides a two-fold experience for the cat parents attending it: fun and enjoyment, but we also wanted everyone who takes part of the day to learn something about their cat and about how they can strengthen their bond with their cat.”

The whimsical Purradise campaign was borne out of Whiskas’ mission to ‘help cats purr more’ and the strategic objective of encouraging pet parents to bring a bit of joy and delight to their cats’ nine lives by trying a variety of the Whiskas product range. It’s a global campaign that’s been amplified across OOH, radio, digital audio, social and in store. Annie says: “it has been received phenomenally by pet parents and the wider community.” And this International Cat Day, the campaign was pushed across stores and digital, while other in-store and experiential events were also launched in other markets including Germany, Poland and France.