Whiskas® loCATor

** Mars Pet Nutrition’s mission: creating ‘A Better World for Pets’. This reflects our Corporate Purpose and Social Responsibility, and serves as the foundation for all ESG initiatives.

Background

Due to the international situation, MARS EURASIA stopped supplying products from Russian factories to Kazakhstan. Shelves were filled with a “universal,” faceless Whiskas® package designed for multiple countries — the familiar Whiskas cat was missing from the pack. At the same time, contraband packs from Russia with the familiar design appeared in markets and some traditional stores. Shoppers were confused, seeing different products on the shelves.

Our challenge was to explain the missing cat on the pack and confirm its authenticity — without the option of large-scale, high-budget campaigns.

Strategy

When our cat went missing from the pack, we set out to explore the problem of runaway pets. It turns out 36% of cats run away at least once in their lifetime. In free-roaming regions (most of Kazakhstan), this reaches 53%.

Whiskas® regularly runs adoption campaigns but had never addressed the issue of runaway pets — even though it turned out to be highly relevant for the majority of cat owners. 84% of cat owners in Kazakhstan worry about the possibility of their pet running away or have already experienced it.

The overwhelming majority of cat owners, when they see a well-groomed cat on the street, wonder whether it might have run away from home. But they have no tool to check whether this cat is lost, and they are not ready to spend their time searching through the entire internet for missing pet notices. However, they would be willing to help if someone else did the searching work for them.

The situation is made worse by Kazakhstan’s animal welfare law: animal control services often kill pets right on the street, as state shelters are overcrowded. 62% of runaway cats never return home. It’s a problem that drives local animal activists to protest and pushes the global community to send official letters to the country’s president, urging an end to the mass killing of animals on city streets.

Finding a pet as quickly as possible means saving its life. But paper posters are torn down by city services, and i-forums about lost cats are read only by those who have already lost theirs.

Idea and realization

We openly stated that our striped cat had “run away” and gave up the “sacred” space in our ad campaign to anyone lost and in urgent need of rescue.

We decided to replace unnoticed and easily torn-down paper posters with digital smart billboards, offering instant, hyper-local targeting.

But Whiskas didn’t have the funds such campaigns demand. The problem of runaway cats resonated with all pet owners — including executives of large organizations. We instantly gained the support of partners: the leading DOOH operator, the largest retail chain, the first animal welfare organization, and a mapping service.

We launched Whiskas® loCATor — a people-powered pet search service. As soon as an owner notices their pet is missing, they send a photo to a Telegram chatbot mini-app.

Within a minute, a dynamically generated video is targeted to the area where the cat disappeared — appearing on digital billboards and other locations (in-store screens, taxi displays, a city map app, on the smartphones of community members, as well as posters in vet clinics, pet-friendly cafés, local shops, and apartment building notice boards — each QR code instantly opening the local lost pets page).

We turned every city resident into a rescuer. See a cat? Send its photo to the chatbot — AI will identify it and notify the owner of its location.

Result

124 cats saved in 3 months

An active search community of 12,000+ members (cat owners)

A real issue sparked a massive public reaction and organic buzz.

160+ media & bloggers support

31 000 000+ impressions (even more so, as the media and bloggers continue to talk about us to this day)

100% organic reach, 0 paid media

The smart ecosystem delivered strong business results for every partner.

Whiskas:

+28% sales in top partner retailers

$0 invested in media placement — in DOOH, retail, PR, and partner venues

DOOH Partner:

+37% Geo targeting campaign demand

Magnum:

+23% Pet-club members

Increase in Whiskas sales

And even after we restored production of the familiar packaging at the new factory and the cat returned to the Whiskas® pack, we kept the project going, saving lives and building bridges between the government, animal control services, shelters, and charity foundations.