George Takei and House of Cats

House of Cats had a problem. They were poised to launch an app but didn't have a PR plan. The AR-enabled app featured ?Trumpy Cat,? an animated cat that not only resembled President Trump but sounded like him too. Using Trump?s actual sound bites, users could bring Trumpy Cat into their reality and create videos of themselves interacting with him, making it the first political app of its time. The social media marketing agency Social Edge was set to promote the app through their arrangement with George Takei. But their plan was to only have Takei tweet support for the app. <br>Their objective was simple: get as many users as possible to buy the app during its launch. <br>Takei's involvement complicated media outreach. He had limited availability and scheduling around his time would only give PR one to two days? worth of interviews. While most app launches get two to six months, House of Cats wanted to launch July 4. They came to the PR agency on June 14, meaning the team would only have two weeks to pitch. <br>PR suggested positioning Takei as the man behind Trumpy Cat and the center of the House of Cats narrative. After all, the genesis of Trumpy Cat was Takei's popular meme of Grumpy Cat. PR suggested the following: launch the app near the end of July or August if possible to allow for pitching and collateral development, create collateral that showcased George playing and interacting with the app, offer the tech press interviews with Takei to jump the app to the top of their queue, build in a CSR aspect that is tied with the app?s mission and leverage the latest news about President Trump as a reason to cover the story.<br>