The campaign, which gets under way this week, is for the new Merrick Purrfect Bistro brand of superpremium cat food from Merrick Pet Care, a leader in the growing category of natural and organic pet foods. Purrfect Bistro is a line of 21 products, in cans and bags, that replaces a Merrick brand called Before Grain.

Print and online ads for Merrick Purrfect Bistro — along with the brand’s presence in social media like blogs, Facebook, Klout and Twitter — will be fronted by an American Shorthair cat named W. (Mittens) Bloomfield, a feline food critic who is as finicky and opinionated as any human counterpart. The centerpiece of the campaign is a Web site, styled like a food blog, where the critical cat will hold forth on favorite meals — all of them, not surprisingly, featuring Purrfect Bistro products.

The campaign is being created by Carmichael Lynch Spong in Minneapolis, part of the Carmichael Lynch division of the Interpublic Group of Companies. Carmichael Lynch and Carmichael Lynch Spong began working for Merrick in April 2012.

The campaign has a budget estimated at $100,000, which would be considerably more than what Merrick Pet Care has spent of late on advertising. According to the Kantar Media division of WPP, Merrick spent $6,000 last year to advertise in major media, $2,000 in 2011 and $7,000 in 2010.

The campaign arrives as competition is intensifying in the higher-priced segment of the pet food market, particularly involving brands that are billed as organic or natural. Products are arriving from pet food giants like Mars, Purina and Procter Gamble as well as family-owned and entrepreneurial firms like Ainsworth Pet Nutrition, Blue Buffalo and Merrick Pet Care.

For instance, the September issue of Good Housekeeping magazine, as mainstream a media outlet as there is, carries ads for nontraditional pet food brands like Blue, Iams So Good, Nutro Natural Choice and Rachael Ray Nutrish Zero Grain.

“Purrfect Bistro is a continuation of the ‘Merrick real food revolution’ we began last fall,” says Pete Brace, vice president for communications and pet parent relations at Merrick Pet Care in Amarillo, Tex., referring to a campaign that started with the company’s dog food products.

Merrick is “known for premium natural dog food and our pet treats business,” Mr. Brace says, “and with the launch of Purrfect Bistro, now it’s time to focus on the felines.”

By making the Purrfect Bistro cat character a foodie, the campaign should “appeal to that passionate pet parent” who is more than likely a foodie when it comes to what he or she eats, Mr. Brace says.

(Yes, you read correctly, the phrase is “pet parent,” not “pet owner.” It is turning up more often in pet food advertising, particularly from companies that charger higher prices for their products.)

The idea is that the new brand “offers the variety, taste, texture, protein and quality they’re seeking” in cat food, he adds.

W. (Mittens) Bloomfield evokes a number of pet food brand mascots, especially Morris, the finicky cat that represents the 9 Lives brand of cat food sold by Del Monte Foods.

Mr. Brace demurs. “We really don’t see it that way,” he says, because the character “is not really a spokescat, if you will.”

Rather, the cat critic is “the foil or the muse, to educate and entertain,” he adds, and displays “that discerning, endearing personality much like one’s own cat.”

As the campaign unfolds, the character will be “opining on a number of topics,” Mr. Brace says, expressing “his discriminating self.”

The initial post on thecatcritic.com is devoted to a review of the Purrfect Bistro canned tuna pate variety, which W. (Mittens) Bloomfield raves about in a roundabout way: He writes about a trip to Paris where he dined at a “familiar bistro” on a “remarkable” tuna paté — “in other words, a note-for-note recreation” of the Purrfect Bistro version.

“My take: Trip to Paris, roughly $1,350,” the post concludes. “Can of Merrick’s Purrfect Bistro Tuna Pate 5.5 ounces, only $1.69 at Petco and other independent pet specialty stores. You do the math.”

In an ad scheduled to appear in the Dining section of The New York Times on Wednesday, the cat critic is heralded this way: “He’s tough. Insightful. And not afraid to get his claws out.”

The ad also offers a review by the feline foodie of the entire Purrfect Bistro line, to which he gives a “rare” rating of five paws (out of five). “I savored the experience as one might a firm scratching behind the ears or a midnight stroll after finding the pet door open,” he writes.

The ad is liberally peppered with puns and cat jokes, among them how the character can count his memorable dinners “on one paw,” how it is difficult to keep his train of thought because “admittedly, I’m easily distracted” and how his Purrfect Bistro meal was marred “by two minor missteps to the evening, both self-inflicted: no scratching poles nearby and no warm shaft of sunlight in order to take the perfunctory after-dinner nap.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/business/media/this-pet-food-critic-is-as-catty-as-they-come.html?partner=rss&emc=rss