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 (sometimes called blend word, lexical blend, portmanteau or portmanteau word) is a word formed from parts of two or more other words. At least one of these parts is not a morph (the realization of a morpheme) but instead ...
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 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' idiosyncratic and intentionally grammatically incorrect text is known as lolspeak.
Lolcat is a compound word of the acronymic abbreviation LOL (laugh out ...
References
Internet memes
1990s neologisms
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