Most brands worry about competitors. Whisker is worried about complacency – specifically, the millions of cat owners who have decided that scooping an open box of poop in their home is just one of life’s little chores.
The marketing challenge is showing people that there’s another way, says CMO Hew Loyd, on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.
Whisker manufactures the Litter-Robot, a Wi-Fi-enabled, self-cleaning litter box that sits somewhere between a pet product and a smart home gadget. The sell is that it offers a combo of convenience and health insights, like flagging when a cat is using its litter box too often or not at all, both of which can be early signs of a problem.
But the Litter-Robot is a pricey and therefore highly considered purchase, ranging from around $600 to more than $1,000 depending on the model and whether accessories are included. No one likes scooping litter, but that’s expensive enough to give most pet parents pause.
“We need to do a lot of education,” Loyd says. “We need to bring people along [and] continue to tap them [and] reinforce them, because it’s a process of understanding how to justify the purchase.”
Nobody sees an ad and immediately drops a grand on a litter box. The decision usually plays out over weeks or even months across multiple channels, which is why Whisker leans so hard on upper-funnel video, particularly YouTube and CTV.
But the brand also has a performance mindset, says Loyd, who joined as the company’s first-ever CMO in September 2025 after holding the top marketing job at meal delivery platform CookUnity and Unilever-owned condiments brand Sir Kensington’s before that.
One of his first orders of business since hopping aboard at Whisker has been to build a multi-touch attribution model to see which channels actually move people along the slow path to purchase. Last-click doesn’t cut it when the conversion window can be as long as six months, Loyd said.
Multi-touch is already giving Whisker a more nuanced view of how different channels contribute along the way. For example, Facebook, TikTok, Google’s Demand Gen and even Snapchat are important stops along the path to purchase, but they can look weak if you only look at last-click.
“One of the most eye-opening findings is how much traditional last-click reporting undervalues awareness and interest channels,” Loyd said.
Also in this episode: humor as a marketing tool (“Poop jokes? Timeless,” Loyd jokes), targeting strategies for reaching cat people and Whisker’s stance on AI-generated content. “We want to support cat talent,” quips Loyd. “We don’t want to see cats losing their jobs!”
