Catvertising is the use of cats in advertising. Although cats have been used in advertising for many years, the technique was first given its own name in about 1999.
The term, a
blend word
In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together. from ''cat'' and ''advertising'', increased in popularity beginning in 2011 as a result of a parody of commercialization of cat viral videos by the advertising agency ''john st.'' in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
It was nominated for a
Webby Award
The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...
in 2012.
The video was part of a series of spoofs beginning with "Pink Ponies: A Case Study", then Catvertising, and finally "Buyral" (a blend of "buy" and "viral").
This style of advertisement is sometimes simply referred to as a "cat commercial".
A University of Arizona marketing team competes under the name "Catvertising".
See also
*
lolcat
A lolcat (pronounced ), or LOLcat, is an image macro of one or more cats. Lolcat images' Idiosyncrasy, idiosyncratic and intentionally grammatically incorrect text is known as lolspeak.
Lolcat is a Compound (linguistics), compound word of the ...
References
{{Wiktionary
Internet memes
1990s neologisms