How a marketer-turned-CEO helped turn Whisker into a cat-litter empire
Source: Business Insider ·
Whisker's Jacob Zuppke helped turn a self-cleaning litter box into a booming business with creative marketing.
From the source
Jacob ZuppkeWhiskerJacob Zuppke helped turn Whisker's self-cleaning litter box into a booming business with low-budget marketing.Whisker's provocative Litter-Robot ads helped fuel growth, even as some cat owners complained.It now has 70 engineers, and its litter boxes use cameras and AI to track cats' habits through an app.Before "influencer" was a common job title, Jacob Zuppke enlisted 25 famous cats to promote self-cleaning litter boxes on Instagram for free.It was 2015, and Zuppke had just joined Automated Pet Care Products, the Michigan-based company behind the Litter-Robot, as a digital-media consultant. Each day from December 1 through 25 that year, a different feline's account gave one of the products away to a follower, a promotion that helped sales nearly double by the end of 2016."They didn't charge for this," Zuppke told Business Insider, referring to the humans behind the Instagram accounts. Paid pet-influencer campaigns weren't "a thing yet."Today, Zuppke is president…
BestAIBroker analysis
- Finance-aware sentiment: neutral (+0.00 on a -1 to +1 scale).
- Event classification: OTHER.
- Market importance score: 28/100, weighting entity relevance, source credibility, multi-outlet coverage and recency.