What happens when Mars stops playing it safe

People are more passionate about their pets than brands, which is a problem and an opportunity if you are one of the world’s biggest legacy pet food brands. 

Mars has been providing nutrition for our furry friends for 90 years. Still, longevity does not equal loyalty, particularly among Gen Z, who are just as likely to be attracted by new market entrants, including D2C players.

The company needed a partner that could help it to reimagine its relevance in the age of TikTok and Instagram, where 68% of Gen Z searches are made.

A new approach
"We needed to make a big change and were looking for a partner who could turn billions of digital signals into meaningful, measurable influencer activations," said Melodie Nye, chief growth officer at Pet Nutrition Europe, Mars.

The company entered a partnership with Brainlabs to build an always-on influencer and social search engine that would engage with more pet owners.

According to Divya Gururaj, Brainlabs’ global chief client officer, Mars has a culture of test-and-learn to approach new ideas and push the envelope.

From awareness to intent
“There are 82 new products in the US daily, so you can’t just keep doing what you’ve always done. The game has changed. Discoverability, social proof and reducing the gap between trigger and purchase are so important,” she said.

Gururaj said we are now in the era of intent marketing. With 52% of searches informational, advertisers and marketers should be looking for signals of consumer intent relevant to their brands and categories – does my cat love me? How can my cat lose weight?

“There are billions of intent signals every day, and our proprietary AI platform can help figure out what signals are important and how to connect brands to the consumer in the right context with the right content,” she said.

Authority builds loyalty
“We have changed from advertising to advice giving and have seen amazing results from that,” said Nye. “By showing up as the authority, we’re more likely to win that pet parent over and keep them.”

A bold aspect of the new strategy has been letting influencers play a bigger role in communicating the Mars message.

Mars maps the personas and content of influencers to its brand personas and has given up creative control of its branded portfolio to a large extent.

“It was a challenge to get sign off with lots of upfront vetting, but it has performed amazingly for us – 60% higher returns than other social media,” said Nye.

Creativity you can’t brief
The level of creativity from influencers has been impressive, with influencers producing some of Mars' best content for brands such as Dreamies cat treats.

“We’ve had content that we just couldn’t have briefed to an agency. People are much more creative than we are,” said Nye.

Creative control is retained through using moderately flexible assets across the global brands' strategy. 

“We do lots of upfront consumer testing, providing flexibility within a framework. Once you have defined the brand box, then whatever comes out of it will be on brand,” she said.

“We get a 35% better ROI on influencer content. It’s super engagement, but I don’t like to talk about likes and engagement because we are attribution marketers – all we care about is sales,” said Nye.

The approach has been so successful that Mars has even opened its own product store on TikTok, something that few manufacturers have managed to do.

Gururaj said Mars is an excellent example of client bravery. “In 2021, Nielsen did a study that showed 88% of people trust influencers over other sources, but you have to be prepared to embrace that changing world.”

For Nye, the key question is not so much why, but rather why not?

“What’s the worst thing that can happen? It's something I say a lot. Maybe something lands a bit flat. Big deal. Understand your brand and have the ability to let go. More often than not, you will be amazed.”