If the bizarre popularity of Kitten Casting microsite where they can vote for the next star to be featured in its TV campaign debuting in October.

‘It’s such a fragmented community, so our hope is that cat lovers out there will find it and see it,’ says Bessy Nikolaou, senior digital strategist at Halifax-based Time and Space Media which handled the buy for Irving Tissue’s Royale.

Digital media drivers include a leaderboard, big box and embedded video ads across Olive Media, VideoEgg and Transcontinental sites and newsletters, plus a sponsored section on LaineyGossip.com. ‘It’s kind of fun because she posted her first blog around Kitten Casting and made reference to American Idol and Simon, so it’s this whole idea of, how do we make that tie to the American Idols of the world? Because it’s kind of what it is – voting for your favourite kitten,’ says Nikolaou. The goal of the contest is to drive traffic to the site and also help drive to Royale’s database as well, she adds.

With creative by Hawk, 10-second spots will also continue to air on conventional and specialty stations like CTV, W Network and Citytv for the duration of the four-week contest, says Gary MacIntosh, Royale director of marketing.

‘Because everyone is excited about young kittens and how playful they are, we saw this as an opportunity,’ he tells MiC. The contest, which began last week and runs for four weeks, has already received 10,000 votes, and 300 photos have been uploaded on the ‘feline friends’ gallery on the microsite.

There are four kittens in the contest: Groovin Kitten, Diva Kitten, Sherlock Kitten and Kung Fu Kitten. But much like the fickle TV and film business, the kittens have to be a certain age – between six and 10 weeks old – so that they are neither too docile nor too old.

‘To add excitement and keep the participation levels high, we will be dismissing the kitten with the lowest vote total at the end of this week. We will continue to dismiss the lowest vote getter until the favourite has been determined,’ says MacIntosh.