Sheba Unveils Cat Relationship-Building Programme

The Ignored to Adored campaign is by AMV BBDO

By Creative Salon

20 October 2026

The SHEBA® brand, part of the Mars family of brands, has launched a relationship-building programme created by AMV BBDO, featuring Hollywood stars, celebrities and everyday heroes. From Olympic medallists to firefighters, all united by one humbling truth: you can be one of the most loved, admired or celebrated people in the world, but your cat might still not care.

Cat lovers everywhere know the feeling. In fact, one of the most common questions cat owners ask Google is: “Does my cat love me?” However much we idolise our feline companions, we don’t always get that love back.

The SHEBA® brand is helping cat parents strengthen that connection and turn a little feline indifference into something closer to adoration.

Fostering the relationship between cats and their parents

The new SHEBA® IGNORED TO ADORED™ programme promises to help cat parents win even their most aloof cats’ adoration with premium SHEBA® cat food in just days, backed by a money-back guarantee. It’s designed to encourage more regular feeding of SHEBA® brand products helping turn occasional buyers into loyal ones, while giving cat parents a reason to keep the love going.

AMV BBDO developed the programme in partnership with the Waltham Petcare Science Institute (Mars Petcare’s leading science centre for pet health and nutrition) after research showed more than half of cat parents in the UK, France and the US have questioned their cat’s love for them 1.

Brand building through culture and communities

The programme forms part of a broader strategic brand-building approach from Mars to ensure every global brand campaign drives cultural impact at a local level, using consumer insights to shape how and where brands like SHEBA show up across creator ecosystems and communities, and enabling more opportunities for people to engage, contribute and share.

The social and earned first campaign, developed in partnership with Weber Shandwick, is built around the painful truth that even some of the most loved people in society, from paramedics, nurses and firefighters to world-famous entertainers and sports stars, still struggle to get their cats to love them back. That is, until they try the IGNORED TO ADORED™ programme to at last be rewarded with the affection they deserve.

Rolling out across countries including the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, India, Thailand, Australia, cat parents can see the IGNORED TO ADORED™ programme come to life via fun, relatable content, inspired by the realities of life with a cat in social feeds, in- stores, and beyond. It’s about driving movement around affection between cats and cat parents mobilised through local nuance and communities.

That includes Hollywood actress Haley Lu Richardson, known for The White Lotus, Ponies and films including Five Feet Apart, and her cat Darbin, to British singer-songwriter Cat Burns, who may have won over millions of fans on BBC One’s The Celebrity Traitors but still isn’t convinced she’s won over her cat, Ollie.

In India, Bollywood actress Sharvari joins the campaign too, adored by fans and celebrated on screen, but facing exactly the same challenge when it comes to impressing her cat.

Olympic gold medallist Ilia Malinin has the same problem. His viral backflip on ice skates captured attention around the world but earned him no extra affection at home. He even gifted his gold medal to his rescue cat, Mysti, and was still met with total indifference.

And it’s not just celebrities. Runner Aaron Beggs went viral after sacrificing his own personal best to help an exhausted competitor at the Boston Marathon, an act of heroism that, as far as his cat is concerned, apparently counts for very little. He’s joined by many more everyday heroes whose extraordinary achievements have impressed everyone except the one audience that matters most: their cats.

Anna Szpot, Global Campaign Lead, said: “At SHEBA®, we know that cat parents will go to great lengths to feel more connected to their felines, even if that means speaking to them or mimicking their behaviour. IGNORED TO ADORED™ connects with what we know about both cat and human behaviour to celebrate this unique bond.”

Andre Sallowicz, ECD, at AMV BBDO, said: “We identified the real challenge as frequency. Cats love SHEBA®, but their owners don’t buy it often enough. So instead of telling cat owners how good the product is, we gave them a reason to buy it more often. Because when you give cats what they want every day, you don’t just change their food, you change how they feel about you.”

Dr. Tammie King, Senior Research Manager at the Waltham Petcare Science Institute, champions the science behind the campaign: “The IGNORED TO ADORED™ programme is driven by our science-based SHINE framework to empower cat parents to build stronger bonds, support their cats’ well-being and help them identify overlooked signs of feline affection.”

Credits:

CEO: Xavier Rees

Chief Client and Business Officer: Katy Wright

Chief Strategy Officer: Jo Arden

Deputy Chief Strategy Officer: Ben Jaffe

Creative Director: Andre Sallowicz

Senior Creatives: Hetu Negri, Juan Peirano

Global Business Lead: Richard Mitchell

Senior Account Director: Jake Gidley

Account Manager: Niamh McCafferty

Strategy Partner: Suzanne Barker

Strategy Director: Kerry Boyes