Sift & Toss Litter Liner — A Marketing Review

A brief flash of movement catches your eye.

Low and moving silently, you catch a glimpse of a familiar shape making its way to a plastic box in the corner of the room.  Although it has now moved out of sight, your ears catch the faintest of sounds:  barely audible crunching of a gravel-like substance followed by a brief outburst of flatulence and then a sense of relief.  More soft crunching is heard—almost like an item is being buried.  A moment later the furry animal slowly waltzes back into view.

The cat lazily flops down in the center of the living room, basking in the sunlight pouring in through the window and acting like it doesn’t have a care in the world.  Looking so soft and fluffy, you can’t help but smile at the now lounging feline.  Its tail casually swishes as it looks upwards, gazing back at your face.  Staring into your eyes.  Waiting for your reaction.

And then it hits you.

HOLY &#%$!  I mean, DAMN!  It stinks!  Wow!  What in the hell did that thing eat today?

A remarkably foul odor that originated deep within the bowels of the cat has now arrived at your sensitive nostrils.  The stench quickly infiltrates your nose, soaking deep within the scent glands and nearly bringing you to tears.  You gag on the heavy odor.  The potency of the stench is nearly overpowering.  With a flash your hand reaches up and pinches your nose closed, hoping to keep the extreme fecal foulness from causing permanent damage.

It’s too late!  You can nearly taste the cat’s fresh pile of excrement as your senses go into overdrive, trying desperately to block this foulest and most toxic of odors.  Bile creeps up the bottom of your throat.  Thoughts of puking are forced away as, more determined than ever, you get up and attempt to remove the source of the odor.

Watching from the floor, the cat’s eyes open slightly wider as you climb off the couch and stagger to its litter box.  There’s a hint of a smile on the cat’s face as it watches you stare disgusted at its massive pile of feces in the tiny plastic box.  Its furry tail swishes again as the cat watches your horrified reaction.

Shouting a non-stop tirade of profanity at the now mildly entertained cat does nothing as you hold your nose closed with one hand and use the other in an attempt to scoop the still fresh and quite massive pile of cat poop out of the box.  Kitty litter and pieces of excrement spill everywhere as you fling the individual cat turds across the room into a waiting trash can, missing at times and hitting the wall and floor.  Oh, if only your aim was better!  If only the cat didn’t eat prunes today!  What an awful mess!

In the end, the cat has only learned that you will always clean its poop.  How YOU do it is up to YOU, but YOU will be the one responsible for keeping that litter box clean.  The cat just lies there and casually licks its paws, deciding now to take a bath as you begin scrubbing the carpeting around the litter box and trash can.  With any luck the foul stench and sickening brown stains will be gone before dinner.

Okay, maybe there was some exaggerating with that scenario, but the cat was inspired by my girlfriend’s cat.  The question constantly going through the minds of hundreds of thousands of cat owners is this:  Is there a better way to remove cat pee and poop from a litter box?

One option involves eliminating the litter box and training a cat to use the toilet.  Good luck with that one!

Sift & Toss Litter Liner website — www.SiftandToss.com

Another option presented is something called Sift & Toss.  According to its website and TV commercial, this is a simple way of scooping cat poop out of a litter box.  Take a look at the TV commercial and see for yourself.

Sift & Toss Litter Liner TV commercial — NOTE – This is an older commercial, and the promotion is priced differently than the current offer on the company’s website, www.SiftandToss.com.

After watching the TV commercial, one has to question whether the commercial is really presenting a valid solution to a real problem.  Let’s take a closer look at the advertisement and see if it succeeds.

Sift & Toss TV commercial — Calling all cat owners!

The commercial begins by narrowing the audience to those who are or personally know of cat owners.  Grandma and Fluffy require your attention.  All owners of dogs, rabbits, ferrets, hamsters, snakes, birds and fish need not apply.  Come on!  We all know which pet is king.  The honor of cleaning a litter box is a small privilege in the eyes of a cat.

Sift & Toss TV commercial — Whew!  Fluffy sure left a ‘fluffy’ here!

Smelly litter boxes can be a real problem.  Even stinky ones.

How do you keep a litter box from stinking?  Should you store it outside?  Can you cover it with a box?  Are you best calling the fire department and having them blast it with a fire hose?  I mean, how do those hundreds of thousands of cat owners deal with such a disgusting problem?

Sift & Toss TV commercial — Digging for buried treasure!

While it looks like she’s hunting for lost jewelry or perhaps digging for clues, this part of the TV commercial supposedly represents an “average” cat owner dumping and replacing the litter . . . on . . . a . . . daily . . . basis.

Really?

Can the commercial get any more absurd than suggesting that most people not only dump but actually replace kitty litter on a daily basis?  If that’s what the commercial is implying, as evident by the woman doing the voice-over, then the commercial itself is doing a poor job showing it.  Perhaps a future version of the TV commercial will actually have matching video for the voice-over.

Getting back to reality, yes, many people do clean a litter box each day, but I seriously doubt that very many people actually remove and pour fresh kitty litter every single day.  Perhaps, just perhaps, this problem is being over exaggerated in the Sift & Toss TV commercial.

Sift & Toss TV commercial — Presenting the Sift & Toss!

Presented as a solution to stinky litter boxes AND a way to save money in regards to pouring fresh kitty litter each day is the Sift & Toss — a different method of sifting cat poop from the kitty litter and tossing it into the trash can.  Or out the nearest window.  Why the Sift & Toss wasn’t presented as just an arguably easier way of cleaning a litter box is beyond me.  Perhaps that angle was too simple.

Sift & Toss TV commercial — Like sands through the hour glass . . .

It’s just that easy, folks!

As the TV commercial states, just line the litter box with a big ol’ bunch of Sift & Toss liners, pour in the kitty litter, and then each day you can lift it, strain the excess kitty litter, and then toss it (and the cat poop) into the trash can.

Sift & Toss TV commercial — Operation Tuck and Dump is now in effect.

As if it really had to be seen to be believed, this is an actual cat TAKING A DUMP in a litter box.

I know, I know.  Watching a cat relieving itself is like seeing grandma in the shower.  Some things are just better left to the imagination.  Others are better left well outside of the imagination and reserved for the deepest, darkest realms of outer space. 

Wow.

Maybe that wasn’t the best example.  Let’s just drop that thought and continue with the rest of the TV commercial.

Sift & Toss TV commercial — Smiling at the after effect of Fluffy’s healthy appetite.

After showing a gray cat taking a dump in a litter box, the commercial goes back and shows us just how easy it is to use the Sift & Toss product.  It’s almost like using a small sifting shovel, but, ummm, it’s not.  No little plastic shovels here.  Nope.  You just lift, wait for the kitty litter to drain, and then toss everything into the trash can.  Just sift out the goodies and toss ’em into the trash.

Sift & Toss TV commercial — A detailed simulation of how to use Sift & Toss and remove cat poop from a litter box.

Some products like digital SLR cameras or sophisticated mountain bikes require further explanations and computer simulations to help buyers determine the best product to fit their needs.

The Sift & Toss is not such a product.

This product appears to be so simple that a child can easily figure out how to effectively use it.  Why the marketers went so far as using a computer simulation of how to use Sift & Toss to scoop cat poop out of a litter box is beyond me.  If people failed to grasp the concept in the beginning of the commercial, then perhaps this highly simplified product is too advanced for them to use properly.

Sift & Toss TV commercial — By raising her arm, little Sally found her latest item for show-and-tell day at school.

As if you have more than three functional brain cells and already grasped the point, the Sift & Toss is being presented as so easy that even a child can now clean a cat’s litter box.  Setting up the Sift & Toss litter liners and adding kitty litter may still be challenging to said child, but the child can at least remove the cat poop.  That’s right, parents.  Responsibility can be taught at such a young age.  And it’s really cheap labor.

Sift & Toss TV commercial — Replacing kitty litter each day costs HOW much each month?!?

In perhaps the worst example in the TV commercial, the marketers for the Sift & Toss product are implying that using the product can save you about $140 each month when compared to the “other” common method of cleaning the cat’s litter box.

Somewhere in the known world there may be a person who has the desire to replace the kitty litter with brand new litter on a daily basis, but for the vast majority of cat owners, I doubt it really occurs that way.  Most people probably replace the kitty litter when it reaches that level of unbearable stench, whether it’s once a week or even once a month.  To imply that the “average” cat owner spends anywhere near that much money just replacing kitty litter each month is beyond ridiculous.  It’s . . . it’s . . . ludicrous.

It’s from poor examples like this where you have to question whether or not this is a valid product.  If a marketing company has to go so far and greatly exaggerate the truth, perhaps it’s because they ran out of valid selling points.  It’s one thing to greatly exaggerate problems.  It’s another to invent them.  When an advertisement does one or even both of them, then perhaps this product isn’t as great and miraculous as the advertising claims.

At the end of the TV commercial we’re hit with the sales pitch.  The company’s website lists the current promotion as two sets of Sift & Toss (a total of 28 liners), two sets of scent lock bags (a total of 50 bags), a grooming mitt and a “kitty fresh pouch,” whatever that is.  The grand total comes to $28.85  ($14.95 (initial product) + $6.95 S&H + $6.95 (S&H for the “free” items)).  The company does offer a 90-day money back guarantee, but if you think it’ll include the $13.90 you’re paying in S&H fees, then you’re mistaken.

FINAL THOUGHTS

After watching the Sift & Toss Litter Liner TV commercial, and seeing the company’s website, one has to question if the company is going too far to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist.

Cleaning a cat’s litter box isn’t the most pleasant of tasks.  However, most people still manage to clean the litter box by scooping out the chunks of the cat’s bowel movements and tossing it into the garbage.  The most common method is by using a plastic shovel with grooves that allow the excess kitty litter to fall back into the box.  Another method involves picking up the cat poop with your fingers.  A more creative method involves gasoline, matches, and a handful of M-80 firecrackers.

The Sift & Toss is just another method of cleaning a cat’s litter box.  You’re still getting very close to the messy box, and you’re still inhaling the foul aromas and pretty much staring at the dried remains as it’s hoisted into the air.  There’s no getting around that part except for A) eliminating the litter box through toilet training or having your cat go to the bathroom outdoors, or B) have an automated system or another person clean the box for you.  The cat is still going to take its royal dump each day.  It’s just a matter of how YOU want to deal with it.  Word has it those automated systems don’t work that well anyway.

What’s interesting here is that the TV commercial implies that you’re supposed to throw away a Sift & Toss litter liner each day.  Gee, wouldn’t that be really expensive after a couple of months?  Can’t you just dump the droppings into the trash cans and then wash and reuse the liners in the next cycle of kitty litter?  The fact that the TV commercial and website don’t even hint of the product possibly being reusable implies that they WANT you to keep purchasing a never-ending supply of Sift & Toss, over and over and over again.

Honestly, it feels like the Sift & Toss TV commercial is trying to invent a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist for most people.  The exaggerated examples make me feel like the marketers believe that the consumers have a really low level of intelligence.  Quite a few people do, but many shoppers are still fairly smart these days.  Perhaps if the marketing team takes the product more seriously, then the company will see greater sales.  In the end, this advertisement feels exactly like the excrement that the Sift & Toss removes from the cat’s litter box.

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All of the Sift & Toss TV commercial images were screenshots of an older TV promotion still available on YouTube.  For more product information, please visit the company’s website, www.SiftandToss.com.

Sift & Toss is a registered trademark.

RellimZone.com is not affiliated with Sift & Toss.