Is This Wrong, Or Is It Just Me?
So being a person who has a mild interest in all things marketing and image branding, and well . . . cat food, I did a double take yesterday while perusing the cat food isle in our local grocery.
I mean I literally passed by, stopped and looked back over my shoulder and then backed up. Sitting there was stacks and stacks of a brand of pet food I’d never seen before. But what actually caught my attention was the picture on the can.
It appeared to be a boy, leaning over a large bowl, lapping up milk (and since it was a cat food can, well it seems a logical conclusion perhaps there is cat food in the bowl as well.) Regardless, here’s this kid apparently eating while sadistically forcing his hungry kitten to watch. The way the boy is hunched over clearly indicates that he is not sharing.
Yeah okay, on closer inspection (much closer because the actual picture is less than 1/2″ tall and the text it teeny tiny. Photo below blown up 4x actual size) it says something about teaching his cat to drink from a water fountain. Which still makes no sense and certainly doesn’t help sell cat food.
Where was this company’s focus group? I’m pretty sure I could have come up with something better on my worst day. Seriously what cat food company marketing geniuses thought this picture (plastered on every single variety of food they sell) was a good idea?
Of course I instantly thought I’d tell you guys about it, so I bought a can.
Ah . . . wait.
(repeating aloud to self) . . . so I bought a can . . .
Touche’ cat food company marketing geniuses.
Touche’
How bizarre. Drinking from a water fountain has absolutely no relevance to cat food whatsoever. I must admit, when I first saw the little image I thought the boy was eating the cat food too, and I thought the caption was going to say something about the food being so good that your kids will want it! Maybe that’s the image they really wanted to use, but couldn’t for some legal reason, so they opted for this one, and made it so small that people would think it actually was a boy eating cat food, but they couldn’t get in trouble for it???
LOL Mona! Thanks for posting this. You’re right — at original size it looks like the boy’s going “I get the dinner dish first, cat.” I don’t think they realized what their cute cartoon looks like, but that is hilarious.
I remember when Ari was a kitten I learned to share very fast, every time I had buttered toast. I’d eat from my end of the slice and he’d eat from his end of the slice. Usually he gave up before I did, but I never grudged him his little corner of my toast or his half teaspoon of yogurt.
Undaunted, At least that would makes sense “the food being so good that your kids will want it! ” if not being a little revolting.
Robert, How sweet you share with Ari. Oliver and I always shared our lunch (he loved yogurt too) but Budda is not as adventurous as Ollie. Anything but kibble and treats confuses him.
very weird.
of course I had to Google PAWS pet food (http://www.pawsforpets.com/Default.aspx).
Apparently their marketing scheme is ridiculous photos of people and pets… Hmm… at least some of the other photos are less unnerving than a kid apparently eating his cat’s cat food!
Well good on you Lorie, for taking this a step further. Wish I had thought to do so.
Pages loaded very slowly but was intrigued. The website makes the food seem more high end though at the store I thought it was the generic version. Hmmm.