The problem:
Super Gato is a local cat food brand in Costa Rica. Over the past few years, the brand had to face the arrival of big international competitors such as Cat Chow and Whiskies, which caused an important drop in Super Gato’s sales.
The brand needed to find a way to differentiate itself from the fierce competition and asked the agency to help it find a way to boost sales.
The solution:
The agency focused on finding a valuable insight that would turn Super Gato into a unique and special brand. Their method was to focus on cats’ behavior, which led them to recognize how much cats love to play with boxes. JWT Costa Rica used this valuable consumer insight (in this case, cats) and used it to improve the product.
Instead of just creating a communication campaign, the agency offered to change the brand’s positioning through a change in product packaging.
By shifting from a traditional plastic bag to a carton box, Super Gato went from selling simple cat food to a product with double function. With this change, not only could cats enjoy good quality food, they could also play around with the product’s packaging.
Moreover, in order to introduce this new packaging to the consumers, Super Gato launched an offline and online communication campaign. Within this campaign, owners were able to share pictures of their favorite pet playing with the box on social media channels.
The results:
Super Gato became just more than just a simple cat food brand. Customers now associate the brand with a new value: entertainment for cats and their owners.
According to the agency’s website, “the brand went so viral and the impact was so great that it was featured in the news”. Sales increased by 31% and Super Gato’s market share soared by 16%.
Conclusion:
This case study reflects one of the most important branding rules: to always be customer-focused. JWT Costa Rica did a great job by analyzing the final consumer’s behavior and by providing them a good reason to prefer the brand.
Many marketers tend to focus on the purchaser’s behavior, but here the brand focused on both the final consumers (cats) and the customers (their owners). Super Gato’s new packaging became a fun toy for cats, but also for their owners who tend to love sharing pictures of their animals on the Internet.
In addition, this smart move from Super Gato allowed the brand to differentiate itself in stores; with the new packaging it became easier for customers to identify the brand on shelves as the Super Gato carton box was instantly recognizable amongst the plastic packages of its competitors.
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