Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Power of the Cuteness Factor

This commercial was shown to me a few weeks ago and I couldn't help but feel happy when I saw that adorable white ball of fluff and watched the romantic proposal unfold.




This commercial for Fancy Feast featured the events leading up to a marriage proposal and we saw the preparation that the man went through to get ready to propose. He designs an entire room for the kitten with ramps, play toys and new paint and rug. Finally, we see an adorable persian kitten with a silver heart charm collar inscribed with "Will You Marry Us?" on a pink ribbon. Aww!

Fancy Feast is a gourmet cat food brand designed to be an expression between owner and pet as "a way to say I love you." According to Fancy Feast's Facebook site, "For more than 25 years, Fancy Feast® Gourmet Cat Food has created exquisite expressions of devotion, inspired by the love you have for your cat." This description is similar to a marriage or romantic relationship. It also represents the serious dedication that Fancy Feast has to provide high quality ingredients to the consumers, the cats. This message becomes clear in this engagement commercial when we see the new kitten given as a surprise gift during the proposal and after the woman sees the "marry us" tag, the kitten is given a big serving of fancy feast in a glass dish. The couple is eating from chinese food cartons and isn't moved in yet, hence the boxes all around, but they manage to find a "fancy" dish for the kitten!!

Do you think the idea of a marriage proposal involving a kitten is a good marketing strategy for a cat food brand? Do you think targeting the emotions of consumers can be an effective strategy? Any other thoughts?

5 comments:

  1. Emotional ads can be very effective. But it depends on the target audience. I'm not a cat person so the ad does not resonate with me. Would be different if the ad showed a dog.

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  2. I agree.. the target audience I think in this case was catering to women because they may have more of an emotional connection to the process of engagement. In addition to the brand being a cat food brand(so it would make sense for it to be a kitten),I think over all the majority of the demographic would think the kitten was cute. Kittens are something that fascinate people on the web, people watch youtube videos of them and share pictures of them. However, I do think that the commercial could also have a similar emotional impact if a cute puppy..similar to the golden retriever used in cottonelle commercials was used instead.

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  4. I agree with Sven, I agree that kittens are cute to the majority of people, but I think that if they'd've done a puppy, it would've appealed to everyone. I think they used a cat because it's more of a feminine animal and like you said Kelsey, the ad obviously caters to women because they have more of an emotional connection to the engagement process.
    ~Z

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  5. Thank you for your response Dream Team. It is interesting that such a small thing can have a large impact on the overall theme of the commercial!

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