Nestle Purina
Dog and Cat Food Brands

The Challenge
Nestle Purina, in a shift of corporate marketing dollars to support local consumer events, wanted to build market share for their premium dog and cat brands like O.N.E®, Pro-Plan®, Beneful®, Cat Chow®, Alpo®, Friskies®, while educating pet owners for eventual conversion, came to Browne+Browne for a solution.

The Strategy/Solution
Using an integrated event/sponsorship/PR framework, Browne+Browne developed and launch a six-year program for Nestle Purina as “Official Sponsor of the Minnesota State Fair (4th largest in U.S.) Pet Center.” The comprehensive program engaged over 35,000 pet owners per event in a intimate one-on-one atmosphere of education (product specialists), information (displays, free samples, brochures) and entertainment (celebrity dog owner autograph signing, video) and used multiple touch points to promote event/sponsorship—newspaper feature publicity stories, Pet Center exterior/internal and demonstration signage, brochure mentions, etc.

Results/Testimonials
• Achieved targeted sampling goals, interaction objectives and over-delivered on ROI
• Increased Purina Super Premium dollar market share (second highest in the U.S. at 10.3%)
• State Fair sampling lead to the largest IRI dollar shares on O.N.E. and P.N.M. in the country
• Created 2.6 million Fairgoer impressions; another 4.3 million external media impressions on average
per event
• Direct one-on-one interactive exposure to over 211,682 Pet Center Visitors each year
• Sampled 34,175 Purina pet food SKUs on average per event
• ROI wise, all events on average delivered 450% more value in media and direct exposure to the
programs costs, and received several “Outstanding Exhibit Awards”
• Overlays included a monetary donation by Nestle Purina to the University of Minnesota Veterinary
School scholarship fund, and retailer coupon handouts at Fair to drive traffic to key grocers as an
account specific program
• Expanded program to the Wisconsin State Fair