Tomcat, the rodent control brand, offers a wry take on influencer marketing its new campaign, which features an influencer mouse testing out the product, and doing some ad reads for it.

The spot above is a parody unboxing video, which goes about as well as you’d think for the mouse. Two more quick spots below (must have filmed before the other one) show him bemoaning the deaths of his followers—and even selling out with a quick ad read.

This is the first Tomcat work from The Martin Agency, which worked with stop motion animator Tobias Fouracre (“Isle of Dogs,” “Save Ralph”) on the spots.

The creative had to strike a balance with the mouse character. “He needed to be cute enough for the stakes to be high, but douchey enough to also have everyone OK with the fact that we off him in the end,” said Allie Nordstrom, creative director at Martin.

“We loved the contrast of taking a very modern medium—the YouTube unboxing vid—and presenting it in this organic, painstakingly crafted animation style,” said Elliot Nordstrom, creative director. “When we were able to get Tobias Fouracre on board, we knew we had a chance to make something special.” 

The campaign launches Nov. 12 and will run across CTV, OLV, retail and paid social. 

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