From Billboard to FYP
How Dreamies transformed a London billboard stunt into a TikTok-first cultural moment
845k
organic views
17.8%
engagement rate on TikTok versus a benchmark of 6-8%
86%
positive sentiment versus a benchmark of 57%
About Company
Dreamies is Mars Petcare's beloved cat treat brand, best known for its "Cats Will Do Anything" brand platform and its playful, irreverent approach to connecting with cat owners across the UK.
Company size
Enterprise
Industry
Consumer Goods & FMCG
Brainlabs featured services
Influencer Marketing
Paid Social
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Speak to a BrainlabberThe challenge
Dreamies had a visually striking moment on their hands: a giant London OOH billboard with 3D cats scrambling up the building to reach the treats. The problem was that physical media has limited reach, and a billboard alone wasn't going to generate the cultural buzz the brand was after.
The brief was to transform that IRL spectacle into a TikTok-first cultural event with genuine fame and resonance, without falling into the predictable trap of influencers simply posing in front of the billboard.
Key friction points:
- A high-impact physical activation with inherently limited organic reach
- Risk of defaulting to formulaic influencer content that wouldn't land on TikTok
- Needing to translate an OOH moment into something that felt native to social
Our approach
1. Handing the narrative to comedy creators
Rather than push ads into feeds, we gave comedy creators the freedom to translate Dreamies' "ridiculous irresistibility" into TikTok's native language: absurdist, character-led humour. Leaning into trending formats like "POV a cat goes live" and "I'm not like all the other cats", we turned the Cats Will Do Anything brand platform into a community in-joke rather than a campaign message.
2. Building for participation, not passive viewing
The content series was built to generate organic momentum and real social proof, prioritising entertainment over promotion. By bridging the offline spectacle with online community behaviour, we turned viewers into commenters, sharers and active contributors. We then supercharged organic reach with Spark Ads to extend the campaign's impact further.
Rather than push ads into feeds, we gave comedy creators the freedom to translate Dreamies' "ridiculous irresistibility" into TikTok's native language: absurdist, character-led humour. Leaning into trending formats like "POV a cat goes live" and "I'm not like all the other cats", we turned the Cats Will Do Anything brand platform into a community in-joke rather than a campaign message.
2. Building for participation, not passive viewing
The content series was built to generate organic momentum and real social proof, prioritising entertainment over promotion. By bridging the offline spectacle with online community behaviour, we turned viewers into commenters, sharers and active contributors. We then supercharged organic reach with Spark Ads to extend the campaign's impact further.
The results
What started as a billboard became a TikTok moment with a life of its own.
The campaign delivered:
The campaign delivered:
- 845k organic views, driven entirely by creator-led content
- 17.8% engagement rate on TikTok, more than double the 6-8% benchmark
- 86% positive sentiment, 29 percentage points above the 57% benchmark
845k
organic views
17.8%
engagement rate on TikTok versus a benchmark of 6-8%
86%
positive sentiment versus a benchmark of 57%
