MUSE Gold

2021

Once Upon A Time

Entrant Company

VIA

Category

Integrated Marketing - Integrated Marketing Campaign

Client's Name

Church & Dwight, ARM & HAMMER

Country / Region

United States

The story is simple. ARM & HAMMERTM cat litter’s lightweight business was drowning in a sea of competitors in a category full of apathy. We needed to break through and bring storytelling to cat litter. We partnered with Moving Picture Company, the animation studio behind Disney’s 2019 The Lion King, to create our campaign “Once Upon a Time in Cat World” — a CGI desert world where a lone stranger came looking for the secret to taking care of wetness and got a litter that was more than he bargained for.

When you think about the Wild West, Eastern Europe probably isn’t what comes to mind. Nevertheless, we brought our desert world to life in Sofia, Bulgaria inside an Old West saloon working with local actors (plus a handful of real cats). The inspiration for our cat characters came from some of the greatest Westerns ever made, like High Noon, Tombstone, and Unforgiven. But our hero, Tuxedo Tom, doesn’t find himself in a classic shootout when he runs into the gruff — yet surprisingly friendly — Nine Lives Jackson, who teaches him about the power of Desert Dry MineralsTM.

In order to merge the practical with the CGI, real cats were filmed in the exact position where CGI cats would later appear to match the visual reference for light, shadow, depth of field and motion blur, and custom modeling and rigging systems created the beautifully detailed CGI cats. HDR lighting maps captured the environment as each plate was filmed and digitally shot, and then the animation was mapped onto the CGI cats. The visually stunning work helped double cat litter revenue growth in Q4, generated 2.2x earned media ROI alone, and drove positive engagement on YouTube with many of the 23million+ viewers commenting that we made ads they actually wanted to watch.

Credits

Chief Creative Officer, VIA
Bobby Hershfield
Creative Director, VIA
Ian Dunn
Producer, VIA
Barry Wolford
Creative AD, VIA
Renata Chimenti
Creative CW, VIA
Will Garcia
Client Strategist, VIA
Leslie Henderson
Project Manager, VIA
Louisa Beaulieu
Client Strategist, VIA
Hannah LaSala
Director, MPC
Michael Gregory
Executive Producer, LA, MPC
Karen Anderson
Head of Production, London, MPC
Louise Unwin
Producer, Live Action, Bulgaria, MPC
Johnny Blick
Producer, VFX, London, MPC
Solomon Tiigah
Producer, LA, MPC
Nicole Saccardi
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