12 SPOTS LEFT:

Join us at the Digiday Publishing Summit from March 24-26 in Vail

VIEW EVENT

A Home Depot Cat Meme?

Looks like The Home Depot has caught on to the whole cats on the Internet thing.

The home improvement brand has created a grumpy cat personality, Richard, and his own personal Tumblr where he can complain about his humans and their annoying holiday season practices.

The Tumblr features meme-style Richard pics with his complaints about humans around the holidays, like them not changing his litter box but having time to put up Christmas lights. There are also Q&A type posts of people asking for advice for holidays, like how to outshine the neighbor’s front lawn lights. Of course Richard the cat has knowledge about the best LED lights that you can buy at The Home Depot.

It’s not easy for brands to figure out what to do with Tumblr, if anything at all. Tumblr CEO David Karp is preaching the gospel of creativity, which can be a tough sell to brands that churn out things like toilet paper. Hey, if Home Depot can do it, why not? That’s not to say Richard is perfect. The whole thing feels a bit forced, with Richard just doing the stereotypical “I’m Mr. Smarty Cat and these humans are annoying and silly” thing. But I’m sure people who like generic, cheesy cat humor will appreciate it.

https://digiday.com/?p=26824

More in Marketing

Streaming TV ad rates are falling and Amazon’s the anchor

Whether that holds for the rest of the year is anyone’s guess, but Amazon’s impact on ad pricing is already undeniable.

The Rundown: Why changing search habits matter for advertisers

Shifting search habits have put a dent in Google’s market dominance. It’s not the only company affected, though.

Snapchat’s SMB bet is paying off — but can it keep up the momentum?

Digiday caught up with Snap executive Sid Malhotra to get the lowdown on how important SMBs are to Snapchat’s overall ad revenue stream, what the platform can offer advertisers that its platform peers can’t, and what prevented advertisers from giving the company a proper chance — until now.