Fresh Step, a brand of cat litter established in 1984 and owned by The Clorox Company, saw Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to stand out to consumers. Really. The company’s Valentine’s Day campaign encouraged single people to celebrate the annual holiday of love looking for cats, not dates.
The brand’s campaign, called “Date Cats, Not Humans,” launched on February 3 with a Bumble takeover, featuring adoptable cats from Best Friends Animal Society. Bumble users were able to swipe right or left on adoptable cats, similar to how they might show interest in or dismiss dating profiles. The campaign includes a video of reality TV actress Ariana Madix encouraging viewers to “swipe right on cats.”
Fresh Step and Best Friends Animal Society covered adoption fees over Valentine’s Day weekend, from February 13 until February 16, when the campaign wrapped. To sweeten the deal further, the brand is also throwing in some free Fresh Step litter for those who adopt a cat from Best Friends Animal Society throughout the entire month of February.
More than 600 cats were adopted throughout the campaign flight in February.
In addition to finding forever homes for furry friends, Fresh Step is using its Valentine’s Day campaign as a “hook” to showcase a recent brand refresh and attract new customers, said Deb Crandall, Senior Director of Marketing at The Clorox Company.
“It’s not a secret that we’ve been losing share in the marketplace,” Crandall said, in part due to up-and-coming challenger brands and shifting consumer habits. This Valentine’s Day campaign is the result of Fresh Step “taking a big step back and evolving our brand to catch up to where the consumer is,” she said.
A New Approach to Communicating With Younger Consumers
Fresh Step’s recent rebrand includes more than just a refreshed logo and product packaging; it also represents a change in how Fresh Step is communicating with consumers. For example, “we’re recognizing that the consumers in this category are getting younger,” Crandall said. Recent research suggests that Gen Z and millennials make up over half of all U.S. pet owners, and both generations are driving significant increases in pet ownership.
As a result, Fresh Step is trying to cater its marketing to younger pet owners, who often have different lifestyles and needs than older pet parents. For instance, many younger consumers live in apartments with roommates rather than in homes, especially in major cities, Crandall said. For those consumers, certain product features such as odor control are even more important, compared to those who live solo and/or have more square feet of space.
Previously, “we had stopped talking about odor control” in regular marketing efforts, Crandall said, in part because the brand considered the feature as a given that’s present in all its products. But as competition rises and younger pet owners live in smaller spaces, Fresh Step’s latest campaign effort is its way of “reminding consumers” that its products address the most important requirements of today’s pet parents, she said.
Leading up to this campaign, “what we’ve tried to do is really segment our portfolio to speak to the distinct needs that consumers have,” Crandall said. Fresh Step has been tailoring its marketing and its packaging to capture these distinct needs, she said, including clumping versus non-clumping or scented versus unscented litter as well as highlighting benefits such as tracking and odor control.
“We’ve repositioned almost every SKU in our portfolio, all in service of really speaking to consumers where they are,” Crandall said.
The brand is determining success of its Valentine’s Day campaign by measuring earned impressions using media mix modeling, in addition to tracking the volume of cat adoptions throughout February. In this case, earned impressions refer to users sharing and reposting parts of the campaign on social media platforms, including Fresh Step’s video featuring Ariana Madix or anecdotal evidence of matching with a cat on Bumble.
Going forward, Fresh Step will be “really leaning in on social,” Crandall said, both because it’s where younger consumers are and because “cats rule the internet.” While the brand is still investing in reach-based campaigns, including on linear TV, Fresh Step is prioritizing social media more, “which is definitely different from how Fresh Step has shown up in the past.”
