Friskies Utilizing Viral Marketing with "Dear Kitten" YouTube Campaign

My boss (who is obsessed with cats) pulled me into her office today to show me a series of cute, funny videos put out by Friskies, a cat food brand. The first video of the series, simply titled "Dear Kitten", was posted on YouTube in June and has over 18 million views! Each video is roughly three minutes long, and features an older cat telling a new kitten everything they need to know. The videos do not directly promote the cat food brand, so the goal of Friskies was most likely to build brand awareness in an inexpensive way. 

I think one of the biggest benefits of viral marketing is effective customer targeting. Because viewers share videos with other people, it's probable that the viewer will share it with a person that will be interested in it. For instance, I do not own a cat, but I passed along the video to a few friends that do own cats who are the target consumers of Friskies and could now be potential customers.

With technology playing a bigger role than ever in marketing, I think more companies should utilize viral marketing as a way to indirectly promote their brand and product to millions of potential clients!

Watch the videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4Sn91t1V4g 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yNSF7ljOoU