| EVENT REPORT 06.21.06 12:00 AM |
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| Cats Get Posh Pad for Meow Mix Promo |
| The hook for the cat food brand's pop-up stunt in Midtown was a well-furnished, cats-only house where the feline residents will compete in a televised reality show. |
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| Perhaps if he knew he was on a live Webcam 24-7, Cisco, a five-year-old street cat from Miami, wouldn't have insisted on chewing on the plastic plants that decorated the Meow Mix House, the pet food company's pop-up promotional space on the corner of Madison Avenue and 49th Street. A combination of The Real World and Survivor, the house is occupied by 10 shelter cats from across the country, and the feline contestants will compete in competitions—such as best climbing skills and best-sounding purr—and be voted off week after week by Animal Planet viewers and house visitors via the Meow Mix House Web site. (But instead of hitting the Today show the morning after being kicked off and becoming B-list celebrities, the loser cats are adopted by viewers from their hometown.) |
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PHOTO GALLERY |
 | | Bright yellow cabinets filled with cat food decorated the Meow Mix House kitchen. |
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 | | Ontario-based Taylor Group customized the Meow Mix mobile, which sat parked next to the pop-up store. |
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 | | Full-size human beds laden with pillows and blankets filled the second-floor bedroom. |
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 | | A cat-costumed actor waved to the cat contestants from outside the storefront. |
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 | | The house's columns doubled as scratching posts. |
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 | | Bowls of Meow Mix sat on the dining room table, which was supported by an empty fish tank. The Humane Society wouldn't allow live fish to fill the tank. |
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 | | Lounge furniture and coffee tables dotted the living room. |
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The winning cats—one winner chosen by viewers and one chosen by Meow Mix judges—will receive "feline executive positions" (whatever these positions require, we're sure this entails compensation in cat food) at the company, which was recently sold by its owner, private equity firm Cypress Group, to canned food conglomerate Del Monte for $705 million.
"One of the reasons Del Monte bought Meow Mix is they love the brand and they love the marketing we do with the product, and they want us to bring that kind of thing to Del Monte," said Ira Cohen, Meow Mix's director of advertising and marketing. "I think you'll be seeing another
[Meow Mix promo] in the next 18 months."
Cohen added that thanks to innovative marketing campaigns such as this year's Meow Mix House; 2004's Meow Mix Café, a pop-up promo on Fifth Avenue; and Meow TV, a TV show for cats on the Oxygen Network in 2003, the company's sales have nearly doubled in the past four and a half years. (Cohen also noted the company's increased valuation since its 2001 sale for $165 million by parent company Nestle to private equity firm J.W. Childs, which in turn sold it to the Cypress Group for $432 million in 2002.) Cohen worked with Grand Central Marketing to produce the pop-up; interior designer Linda Evans of Inspired Spaces designed the set and Event Central fabricated it.
—Suzanne Ito
Posted 06.21.06
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