Cats are enigmatic creatures. Ask a five people what a cat is thinking at any given time and you will probably get five answers.

Cat owners are mystified by their whimsical pets’ attitudes to life. And curious. Research suggests that cats only mew to communicate with humans. So adam&eveDDB helped Mars’ Temptations Cat Treats to invent a cat collar that lets cats speak in a human voice.

“Cats are often perceived as quite hard to get to know, independent pets, so we set up The Tempations Lab to find innovative ways to inject even more fun into a cat and owner’s relationship,” noted Richard Brim, executive creative director at adam&eveDDB.

The Temptations Catterbox contains a microphone, speaker, Bluetooth technology and wifi.

The device captures the cat’s mews and translates them into human speech. Of course, the words it creates may or may not be what the cat is actually saying.

Catterbox has launched in New Zealand and the US as a prototype to gauge public interest.

Temptations global brand director Pete Simmons, commented, “We’re fascinated by cats, so we set out on a mission to get to know them better. Through research, we learned that an adult cat’s meow is their way to communicate with humans and, by investing in this prototype device, we can start to improve understanding between them both—giving cats a voice for the very first time. At the Temptations brand, we are passionate about bringing cats and owners together. We have always done this through our treats, but we wanted to go one step further.”

The campaign includes a large collection of 18 second mini-ads in which a cat tells its human what it is thinking about its current situation.

Credits:

Agency: adam&eveDDB
Chief creative officer Ben Priest
Executive creative directors Richard Brim & Ben Tollett
Copywriter: Natasha Lyons
Art director: Dan Lacey
Agency producers: Agne Acute & Matt Craigie
Planners: Stuart Harrison & Jessica Lovell

Production company (product): Acne
Executive producer: Ben Clark
Creative director Acne R&D: Johan Holmgrem
Producer R&D / Digital: Niclas Bergstrom
Research Acne R&D: Caroline Tell, Mikael Vig
Engineering Acne R&D: Patrik Lindberg
Sound Engineer Acne R&D: Svante Stadler

Production company (films): Acne
Executive producer: Ben Clark
Producer film: Tim Mardell
Director: Joakim Behrman
DoPs: Adrian Wigerdal & Joakim Behrman
Editors: Pablo Antonio Labanino & James Ireland
Post production: Cain&Abel
Audio post production: ClearCut sound