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Cuteness overload with McVitie’s kitten campaign.

  • Writer: anita
    anita
  • Nov 11, 2018
  • 3 min read

Are you one of those people who stop in the middle of the street every time they see a dog?

Well…I’m not, but many of my friends are reacting in this way to dogs, puppies, kittens etc. And I’m 100% sure, you’ve got at least one friend who’s like that. Speaking of kittens, do you remember this McVitie’s Chocolate Digestives advert with kittens coming out of a package of cookies?

Just imagine my friends’ reaction to this 30 seconds advert. There were in love with it, but I’m not gonna lie, so was I. Even though, I’m not the biggest cat lover, I couldn’t go over this advert. Beside the fact, that it is a great example of how to make people emotional over a one pack of biscuits, I would like to go a little bit further with it, as McVitie’s didn’t just release it on its own. It was followed by a display in Tesco stores with cute kitten images, which I can assume, drew people attention. What is more, they organized a happening which included likeable, very easy to win games and some prizes. Going even further, they launched iKitten app.


So what was the purpose of all these actions?


Considering McVitie’s using students in their kitten advert and launching an app, you could say that they were aiming for a younger market, which can be true. An campaign’s article explains it here (Campaign, 2014). On the other hand, Sarah Heynen, the marketing director at United Biscuits sweet biscuits, said: “The new advertising moves away from communicating what McVitie's biscuits do, to how they make you feel. ‘Sweeet’” (The Drum, 2014). As you can see, it had a multiple purposes.




Now, let’s have a look at some theory behind it. As far as I’m concerned, their actions are a perfect example of synergistic use of both push and profile strategy. Pickton and Broderick (2005, p.431) define push strategy as: “The focusing of promotional effort by manufacturers or suppliers of goods and services to encourage the trade channel members to stock, promote and sell products”.


How did McVitie’s apply this theory?

By providing Tesco’s shelves with their “sweeet” kitten banners. Did they do well with this idea? In my opinion, yes they did. It’s not very common to going around the grocery store and seeing kitten posters. First of all, it makes you feel kind of emotional, it makes you go “oooo” and makes your mood better. What benefits does the store gets from it? From my point of view, people remember this pleasant feeling while shopping at this particular shop, so the likelihood of them coming back in the future is much bigger.


Coming back to their happening, that was a great way to apply profile strategy, which is more about brand’s reputation and relationship with stakeholders, so with all people that are interested in this particular brand or may be affected by it. (Fill,2009)


By organizing a happening where people could win some prizes, have fun and try samples of their product (samples of biscuits!) they not only increased a brand awareness, but also built a bigger connection with their product and the feeling of joy, happiness and fun. In this way they made their messages very consistent with each other. But let’s paint even a bigger picture.


They wanted to increase sales by associating their product with strong emotions (pleasure, fun etc.) by creating an emotional advert, standing out in stores with their biscuits and finally, giving a chance to people to actually feel those emotions by playing their games and participating in their happening. Entertaining, fun product, which makes you feel “sweet”. How great brand image it has made!


I don’t know about you, but in my opinion, that was a genius campaign, well thought and organized. And it seems like I’m not the only one who liked it, as right now McVitie’s Chocolate Digestives, position themselves as a market leader, which was caused by a huge success of “kitten campaign”.


If you’d like to read more about their marketing activities with this particular campaign, it’s all here at TheDrum.


Let me know in the comments below what you think on their application of push and profile strategy. Was it successful in your point of view? Has your attitude change after this campaign?

anita.



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