For all their simplicity and silliness, internet cat videos have proven to be a powerful genre in the digital age. In addition to generating astronomical viewership, they have spawned feline celebrities such as Grumpy Cat and Lil Bub, both of whom have extended their stardom into merchandising empires. The 2013 official Internet Cat Video Festival drew as many as 10,000 attendees. A documentary about famous video cats, “Lil Bub and Friendz,” even debuted last spring at the Tribeca Film Festival.
It’s undeniable: cats are king when it comes to online video. So when a brand can pair its product with the viewership goldmine that is a silly cat video, it’s a recipe for success.
That’s where Dear Kitten comes in. Purina Friskies’ newest campaign, which was produced in partnership with BuzzFeed, has gone viral since its June 5 release. The three-minute video, in which an older cat gives sage advice to a new kitten, has earned a True Reach® of almost 8 million views in its first four days online.
What makes the content so fresh and appealing to viewers is that it doesn’t feel like an ad. Despite an early image of the Friskies logo and a shot of Friskies canned food halfway through, the video is more or less unbranded until the last ten seconds.
Yes, Dear Kitten promotes a cat food brand, but the video itself is not about cat food.
If anything, it is about the feline idiosyncrasies that all cat owners are familiar with. From an innate fear of vacuums to the pleasure of being able to fit in a shoe, Dear Kitten captures those unique, yet universal, feline quirks.
But the ad’s resonance with viewers isn’t just due to the public’s love of cats. BuzzFeed’s role in the campaign’s success should not be overlooked. The site, which launched its video branch about a year and a half ago, has mastered the art of creating clickable content.
With over two million subscribers to its YouTube page, BuzzFeed’s original videos – which range from life hacks to quizzes – are more or less guaranteed to generate hundreds of thousands of views. Of the 14 videos uploaded to its YouTube page in the last week, not a single one has fewer than 250,000 views.
While BuzzFeed frequently partners with brands to produce sponsored written content, it is only just beginning to expand into branded video.
So far, BuzzFeed has collaborated with both GE and Clean & Clear to produce brand-sponsored videos with titles like Why Inventors Are Awesome and Awkward Things We All Do In Our Teens But Would Never Admit. These two videos have generated 900,000 and 1.3 million views, respectively.
But Dear Kitten is by far its most successful collaboration and may herald the beginning of a new trend in video marketing. BuzzFeed is becoming more aggressive in courting advertisers in the digital video realm. With a hit of this magnitude under its belt, the social news and entertainment company may catch the eye of big-name brands looking to capitalize on the site’s branded video cache.
The idea of branded content as entertainment is hardly new. In fact, this premise is at the very heart of native advertising. What is exciting about BuzzFeed’s branded video initiative is that viewers already trust the site as a source of engaging content. According to its website, BuzzFeed reaches a global audience of more than 130 million people.
That built-in audience, which is primarily made up of young and tuned-in potential viewers, is an incredible and perhaps unmatched resource that few (if any) competitors can match. Moreover, these viewers are primed to share BuzzFeed’s content on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, generating even greater earned media.
Exactly how quickly BuzzFeed Video can ramp up the production of its branded video is unclear, but according to the Wall Street Journal the site claims to have over 40 video producers on staff. This could mean we’ll be seeing more and more campaigns like Dear Kitten in the near future.
The cat’s out of the bag. BuzzFeed Video might just be the next big thing to hit branded digital media.
What did you think of the video? Let us know in the comments.