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Purina builds on mobile app success with new photo-sharing entry for Friskies

Nestle Purina Pet Care Co. continues to make mobile applications a focus of its engagement strategy with the new Catify Yourself app for its Friskies brand.

The new app enables users to place their own face on a cat, add a funny caption and share the image with friends. The app is the latest example of how photo-editing and sharing apps are all the rage in mobile.

Holiday greetings
The app, which is available for iPhone, enables users to pick one of several different cat background templates featuring cats with toys or in playful poses.

There are also several holiday-themed templates that can be used to create holiday e-greetings.

Once a template has been chosen, users take a photo of themselves or choose one from their camera roll and add one of a dozen different captions, such as ?Awkward,? ?I?ll explain later,? or ?Can you pick up some paper towels on your way home??

The app works off the fascination that cat owners have with the funny and strange things that their pets sometimes do by enabling users to have fun with idea of what it would be like to be a cat.

The images created in the app can also be shared on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn or used to make mobile phone wallpaper and social media profile pictures.

The free app is available in the Apple App store.

Photo-sharing apps
Friskies already offers several free apps and mobile games, "Cat Fishing" for cats on iPhone and Android mobile and tablet platforms, and "You vs. Cat," which users can play with their cat, for Android and iPhone tablets.

The Catify Yourself app is the latest example of how brands are leveraging consumers? love of taking photos with their smartphones and sharing them with friends to drive engagement.

Nestle Purina Pet Care Co. also offers a photo-sharing app for its new line of cat and dog food called Be Happy (see story).

This summer, Elmer?s Products introduced a photo-sharing mobile app to help parents capture and share milestones such as their child?s first day back to school (see story).

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York