Advertising loves to "suck"

Source: Economic Daily

An orange kitten snuggles up next to a bottle of orange packaged wine, an aperitif advertisement;

A little black cat squatted in front of the TV and slapped the fish on the screen with its little paws, which was a TV product advertisement;

A white kitten with a blue bow sits in front of a beautifully wrapped barrel for a metal polish advertisement......

Why do cats often appear in advertising? This is not too difficult a question for the advertising industry to answer: the purpose of advertising is to attract people's attention and thus promote products, and cats have long been one of the favorite pets of mankind, eaten by men and women, young and old.

As early as the 60s of the 19th century, British photographer Harry Point discovered the potential business opportunities in cat photos. Initially, he took a lot of cute photos of cats sleeping, drinking milk, or playing in baskets, which attracted a lot of attention. So, he had an idea to add blessings to the cat's photos and turn them into postcards or New Year's cards, attracting a large number of consumers to buy them. By 1884, he had published more than 200 cat postcards.

After that, the cat listening to the tune, the cat playing with the light bulb, the cat wearing glasses...... Cats began to endorse all kinds of goods. For example, in the mid-to-late 19th century, the pain-relieving product "Dr. Thomas Electric Oil", which became famous in the North American market, is a typical example. It is said that the company initially considered using electromagnetism, which was just emerging at the time, as a gimmick to promote its products, but it was eventually implemented in the advertisement, and the cat became the absolute protagonist. Probably in their opinion, the "unconscious" electromagnetic waves are far less "lethal" than three or five small milk cats.

Entering the Internet era, human beings' attention and love for cats are more fully revealed. Watching cats bask in the sun, purr, spin in circles, and even watch cats get angry has become something pleasant. In October 2006, a video titled "Very Angry Cat" was uploaded to the Internet. In the video, a cat that has just arrived at the animal shelter is meowing, apparently not in a good mood. As a result, the video, which was only 31 seconds, was retweeted wildly, and the number of viewers exceeded 80 million after about 10 days.

For the phenomenon of human "obsession" with cats, scholars have carried out research from multiple perspectives such as neuroscience, genetics, and psychology.

Some studies suggest that the reason why humans are so obsessed with cats is due to aesthetic influences. The biological appearance of large eyes, short noses and small round faces is completely in line with the aesthetics engraved in human DNA, and prompts humans to automatically secrete a large amount of dopamine to produce pleasant emotions.

There are also studies that cats are very "cunning" animals, with first-class survival ability, but they know how to disguise themselves as weak people and arouse people's desire to protect.

In any case, businesses from all walks of life are clearly aware of the cat business opportunity. As the top of the cute pet industry, more and more cats are entering the camera. Cats for bedding advertising, cats for water heater advertising, and even chewing gum advertising also use cats, because of their own traffic, the entire advertising industry is fascinated by cats, and the advertising industry has even invented a word "cat advertising (Catvertising)" for this purpose, which refers to all marketing products that contain cats.

NewsWhip, a social media analytics firm, has published one such study. Reports show that ads featuring cute pets such as cats can generate millions of page views for brands, while also increasing search volume and social media engagement. For example, in brand posts on social media, ads featuring cats are generally viewed highly. A few of these brands saw a 16-fold increase in views simply by changing the focus to cats.

However, similar to any other marketing method, "cat advertising" is strong, but it cannot be used all over the world. The reason why excellent advertising helps product promotion, in the final analysis, is because it has found a balance between product characteristics and consumer cognition, if it is only a fulcrum of "hugging" the cat, and does not form an effective connection with the product characteristics, such advertising is difficult to achieve the expected effect.

That's why cats are rarely featured in car commercials. Especially in off-road vehicle and sports car advertisements, dogs appear much more often than cats. Because cats usually give the impression of being lazy and cute, either jumping up and down at home, or nesting motionless on a mat, pretending to be a stuffed animal, the common denominator between the two is the home environment. However, in the travel scene, the presence of cats is basically negligible, and compared with "taking cats to travel far", "taking dogs to travel far" obviously has more audiences.

Other studies have shown that cats are also not suitable for advertising investment products. Cats are usually more cautious and alert than dogs with active personalities, and this silent hint may cause the audience to calm down and think twice at the first time they see the product promotion.

So, if you want to rub the cat's traffic and want to strengthen the connection between the advertisement and the product, what should you do? One of the methods often adopted by advertisers is to "stuff people into the advertisement": the cat continues to act as a "traffic agent", and the person is responsible for showing the utility of the product.

According to the "3B" principle proposed by David Ogilvy, the "godfather of advertising", the three forms of expression that can best achieve perceptual effect and emotional inducement in advertising creation are Beauty, Baby, and Beast. Now that the animals are in place, the rest is self-evident.

Some advertisements also fully explore the cat's other natures in addition to cuteness. For example, cats like to hide in warm places, so it's no surprise that they can endorse radiators, and there are sweater commercials, as anyone who has ever owned a cat may know, and there's nothing quite like wearing a fluffy outfit and holding a cat on a couch on a cold winter day.

Even the not-so-beautiful side of cats, such as their love of destruction, can also be a selling point in advertising. For example, the cat-to-line mania is well known. In the ads for "thread" products, you can enjoy single-cat stitch removal, two-cat cooperative stitch removal, two-cat confrontation stitch removal, and multi-cat hybrid stitch removal. In this process, the intention of the advertisement is extremely clear: the quality of the thread that even cats can't tear is really good.

There is also an interesting detail: at present, the hottest cat advertising top stream is "Sanhua Cat". According to the cat's living habits, Sanhua Cat can seamlessly switch between different "modes" such as "Good Morning Meow", "Good Night Meow", "Chat Meow" and "Shedding Meow", and will present "Big Meow's Day" on the screen in different time sequences. Since its "debut", Sanhua Cat has not only attracted a large number of passers-by, but also started live streaming and received commercial endorsements. In the shedding season, it received advertisements for sweeping robots, and in the shopping season, it received all kinds of cardboard boxes from TV shopping platforms......

If we zoom in on the field of vision, we can see that in recent years, the brand image of many enterprises has also been riding on the road of "cute pet". This not only reflects the changes in consumer preferences and needs, but also shows that enterprises have generally begun to shift from a product-centric consumption outlook to an emotion-centric consumption outlook.

As marketing expert Philip Kotler said, "A successful and personified brand image is its best public relations, which can promote a closer relationship between the brand and consumers, so that consumers can gradually deepen their feelings for the brand and its inner culture." "Cats are fearless explorers and reliable comforters, they have both the independent personality of "being themselves" and the ability to bring spiritual comfort to people. In the fast-paced modern society, this image has undoubtedly become one of the best expressions of brand personification. After the "soft cute" interpretation of various marketing methods, consumers' emotions towards cats are more easily transformed into love for the brand, and then transformed into the commercial value of the enterprise.

In other words, as long as the public's enthusiasm for cats is always high, and as long as businesses learn how to properly "get along with cats" or simply "catize", they will continue to attract attention and benefit from it. It is conceivable that in the future, advertising people are likely to continue to fall under the plush paws of cats. (Author: Liu Bo Source: Economic Daily)