Title	FOLLOW FELIX
Brand	NESTLÉ PURINA PETCARE
Product/Service	FELIX CAT FOOD
Category	A06. Events & Experiential (incl. stunts)
Media Agency	OPTIMEDIA Frankfurt am Main, GERMANY
PR Agency	WEBER SHANDWICK Cologne, GERMANY
Production Company	ETECTURE Frankfurt, GERMANY
Entrant Company	WEBER SHANDWICK Cologne, GERMANY

Name	Company	Position
Cathrin Koch	Nestlé Purina Petcare Deutschland Gmbh	Group Brand Manager
Daniela Lein	Nestlé Purina Petcare Deutschland Gmbh	Brand Manager Felix
Kevin Fox	Nestlé Purina Petcare Deutschland Gmbh	Brand Manager Felix
Sabine Lorenz	Weber Shandwick Deutschland	Associate Director
Dr. Jan Dirk Kemming	Weber Shandwick Deutschland	Chief Creative Officer/Europe
Tillmann Allmer	Weber Shandwick Deutschland	Digital Communications Consultant
Stefan Haagn	Weber Shandwick Deutschland	Senior Account Manager
Christina Betting	Weber Shandwick Deutschland	Account Executive
Ilker Ugay	Weber Shandwick Deutschland	Art Director
Michael Ludwig	Etecture Gmbh	Senior IT Consultant
Daniela Schultz	Etecture Gmbh	Project Manager
Tobias Kropp	Teamwork Gmbh/Co. Kg	Business Executive
Dr. Stefanie Wehnert-görres	pure brands – public relations for brands	Business Executive
Vanessa Heil	Optimedia	Media Planner
Tim Eilers	Eviom Gmbh	Consultant

The Campaign

Cats equal page views. There are so many cats on social media, it’s like they own the internet. But how much do we really know about what our feline friends are getting up to when we’re not snapping and sharing them? We came up with the idea of creating wearable technology for cats, to solve the mystery of the secret lives of “clever cats” for Nestlé Purina Petcare’s cat food brand FELIX. In a three-week experiential campaign to “Follow Felix”, we fitted 50 felines with an innovative custom-made harness holding a GPS device using a Google Maps app. Everything was rigorously tested by experts and animal welfare specialists to ensure the cats were safe and happy. The tracking data was fun and compelling, and yielded reams of additional content, including videos, pictures, expert articles and an online game where users could bet on which cat would win medals for being the most or least social or active. Cat owners loved the campaign. Follow Felix posts had the highest-ever engagement rates on the brand’s social media channels. One video post generated 8.5% engagement, a new record for the brand. We reached over 3.5 million people on Facebook, and TV, print and online media reach was more than 70 million contacts. This innovative brand experience – the first of its kind in this sector – told the “clever cats” story perfectly. Most importantly, it was followed by business results: in 2015, FELIX overtook its arch-competitor and is now the market leader in Germany.

The Brief

Our objectives: • Give cat fans – and owners of clever cats – a reason to fall in love with FELIX • Reach, engage and enlarge the FELIX Facebook community.

Execution

We found 50 cat owners in Euskirchen, which has one of Germany’s largest cat populations relative to its inhabitants, who volunteered their cats for the initiative. At an event for the participants, a FELIX representative and cat experts explained to owners how to put on the cat safety harness. We tracked the cats for three weeks. A microsite housed our magazine with news, photos and blogs, information from vets and pet experts, a map, video footage and interviews. Virtual medals were developed for the most and least active cats. We built an online game where users could bet on which cat would win the most medals, and produced a “Catistic” infographic of the most interesting data. Ads were placed on websites and blogs with a focus on pets. We pitched the brand experience to the media and involved Germany’s most popular pet TV show in video production.

The Follow Felix cat tracker was an outstanding experiential campaign, in terms of innovation, data collection and data visualisation, and content creation. It told FELIX’s “clever cats” story perfectly: the first cat food brand to uncover the mystery of what cats do when they wander outside. Coordinating 50 cats and their owners, and producing engaging data visualisation was a huge challenge, but it paid off: • Follow Felix posts had the highest-ever engagement rates on the brand’s social media channels • There were 1,500% more visits to the FELIX website than the month before • Videos were seen around 650,000 times • We reached more than 3.5 million on Facebook • TV, print and online media reach was 70 million+. Most importantly, sales followed: FELIX reclaimed the market leadership at the start of 2015 and is still the biggest cat food brand in Germany. (Nielsen; LEH + DM + Petstores; Catfood Total; VMS; March 2015).

The Strategy

We found that cat owners have no idea where their cats go and what they do when outside the home, but they would love to know. Our killer idea was to create the first wearable for cats, to track their location, movements and activity. We would adapt the latest GPS technology to create “quantified pets” and use the data to create unique and shareable cat content. We investigated GPS trackers, looking at whether they would withstand cats’ agility and weather conditions, and allow easy data visualisation. Most importantly, they had to be safe for the cats to wear. We adapted a GPS device, and then worked with experts to design and create a custom-made cat harness with safety fasteners. The cats’ wellbeing and comfort was top priority, so we involved animal welfare specialists, including independent testing of the fastener by the Fresenius Institute.