Cats and football? The perfect match!

A few fast-paced, feline-filled weeks later, and we’re delighted to share a supercut of all our mini ads live this summer, thanks to a partnership with Cats Protection and ITV Sport.

Kick off

This summer’s football events aren’t only key cultural moments in the calendar. For Cats Protection, they’re fantastic opportunities to reach and inspire potential cat adopters, particularly 18-34 year olds who make up a third of all cat owners.

Audience research told Cats Protection that only 16% of this audience adopt a cat from rehoming charities and shelters. They developed the ‘Perfect Match’ concept to raise awareness of adopting from Cats Protection to be matched with their perfect cat.

Our job was to bring this concept to life on TV in a quick, memorable and entertaining way. 

A strong first half

To do so, we had to work at speed – it was almost summertime. Together with the Cats Protection team, we creatively agreed to use existing footage or stock (cue spending days looking at cat visuals… I can think of worse things!). 

We came together for a full round of concepting, where different aspects of the beautiful game, from heat maps to famous quotes, were considered. 

Our winning idea, ‘Cats of the day’, marries the exciting and recognisable language of football commentators with action shots of cats showing the playful, fun and loving sides of their personalities. Think excited sprints to food, impressive leaps and lots of cuddles in homely, yet vibrant settings.

The road to the final

Our editor, Oliver Barron, helped us to bring this concept to life, seamlessly weaving together the language and cat-themed action. 

He also helped us perfect our new football-inspired lock up, which played with the Cats Protection logo.

Matchday antics

We called up the experts – real pundits and commentators – from the bench to be our voiceovers. Over two days, each of our cast spent time in ITV’s studio, making our signed-off scripts feel authentic.

Our Creative Director, Jamie Tierney, represented our team in person and directed the voiceovers. This is what he said about the experience: 

“Our commentary was brilliantly delivered by well-known voices from the women’s game, bringing all the excitement of international football to our ads. Their enthusiasm for the project really took the ads to another level; it surpassed anything we could’ve ever imagined. The only thing now is for perfect matches to start being made!”

Off the pitch

To bring the Perfect Match campaign to even more audiences, we created a suite of action-packed social assets. This includes four separate Meta posts, accompanied by short, snappy copy which spotlighted our VO talent.

In addition to this, we created a new pause ad for ITVX, which gave us the opportunity to flex our original idea even further. ‘Eyes on the ball’ is a simple ad that relates to the audience’s excited, joyful emotions towards the game.

Our name’s on the cup

We’re so proud of the end result, and getting to work so closely with the Cats Protection and ITV teams was a real highlight.

This sentiment was shared by Cats Protection Associate Director of Brand & Marketing, Nicola Shepherd, who said: 

“Collaborating with Open to bring the Perfect Match to life was a great example of creative partnership. Together, we transformed a simple idea, celebrating the spirit of cats and the beauty of women’s football, into a bold, standout campaign full of personality, passion and play.”

We hope you love these new ads just as much as we do. Thank you to everyone who made them possible!