How Blue Buffalo spearheaded a movement in a new category
A Pet Care success story:
Entering the Wet Cat Food category and growing the brand
The GMI team saw an opportunity…
‘We realized if we had the same share in cat wet that we did in dog wet, there would be significant value. In looking at trends, cat wet had double digit growth year over year, yet it was a space no one was really owning, so we saw a big opportunity.’
Betsy Paulus
Senior Manager of Corporate Strategy at General Mills
Naturalizing wet cat food
The idea came after consumer research discovered three key insights:
Current healthy wet cat food had bad taste perceptions among pet parents
Wet cat food pet parents value emotional interaction (looking for meowing, leg rubbing, etc.) during pet feeding time
There were several consumer pain points with the current market, e.g. an ‘ick factor’, sharp lids, and inconvenient storage of left-over product
Came up with an idea…
Developed a
product…
A replacement for the existing Healthy Gourmets brand
Natural ingredients & Taste-first focus
R&D focused on palatability from a cat perspective
Insights team gathered pet parent feedback to give a 360 picture of total product experience
‘We went all the way to ground zero to build a great product and to build [a new] brand at that first moment of truth with pet parents’
Dan Vroman – Consumer Insights Manager
With optimized packaging…
And strong activation…
Maintained spend beyond Year 1
Utilized brand ambassadors, “Pet Detectives,” in pet specialty stores to encourage trial
Leveraged content from influencers
To see winning in-market results.
Blue Tastefuls became a leader in the movement to naturalize the wet cat food category
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