Cats clear­ly rule the Inter­net, but sharks are hav­ing their own moment. From Shark Week, to “Shark­na­do”, to Left Shark, con­sumers’ enthu­si­asm about sharks has nev­er been high­er. Brands and mar­keters cer­tain­ly aren’t shy about jump­ing into shark-infest­ed waters.  Which brands are tak­ing so-called “shar­ket­ing” to the next lev­el?

Discovery’s 2015 Shark Week pro­gram­ming, which wrapped up last night, will also include “spe­cial week­end” pro­gram­ming in August, which the net­work says means 2015 will be the “Sum­mer of the Shark.” The net­work also added embed func­tion­al­i­ty from live video stream­ing app Meerkat this year, which, Dis­cov­ery says, includ­ed “jaw­some” behind-the-scenes con­tent, as well as sto­ries from shark experts and a live feed­ing from Baltimore’s Nation­al Aquar­i­um.

There’s good rea­son to keep those view­ers engaged. Shark Week 2014 drew in more than 42 mil­lion fans.

To fur­ther cap­i­tal­ize on the dis­pens­able income of these shark enthu­si­asts, Dis­cov­ery says view­ers can find beach tow­els, appar­el, and more at Tar­get, as well as plush toys, puz­zles and lunch kits at Toys “R” Us, in addi­tion to its own DiscoveryStore.com mer­chan­dise. What’s more, Dis­cov­ery says two ships in Princess Cruis­es’ fleet were decked out for Shark Week, includ­ing pre­miere screen­ing par­ties, games, and give­aways.

This is like­ly what inspired anoth­er net­work, Nat Geo Wild, to launch its own com­pet­ing week-long shark pro­gram­ming, Shark­Fest, which also played out the week of July 5. They even called out Shark Week in a pro­mo­tion­al video, say­ing, “You know what’s fun? A fes­ti­val. You know what’s bor­ing? A week.”

Although, per Top­sy, #Shark­Week gen­er­at­ed about 180,000 men­tions in the last week, while #Shark­Fest spawned about 3,000.

But that’s just the tip of the ice­berg.

Also con­sid­er Syfy’s “Shark­na­do” movies, which, as of an August 2014 press release, had pulled in 18.2 mil­lion view­ers to date.

The third movie in the fran­chise, “Shark­na­do 3: Oh Hell No!”, which will also include the tal­ents of none oth­er than David Has­sel­hoff, Mark Cuban, and Ann Coul­ter, among oth­ers, pre­mieres July 22. (Accord­ing to reports, Syfy also recent­ly cut a cameo in the movie by embat­tled Sub­way spokesman Jared Fogle.)

Syfy has even cre­at­ed has a Go Shark Your­self app, which allows view­ers to place images of them­selves in shark­na­dos. The app has between 50,000 and 100,000 down­loads, accord­ing to Google Play.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Steven Spielberg’s film “Jaws”, which made $471 mil­lion world­wide when it was released in 1975, cel­e­brat­ed its 40th anniver­sary this year with a return to the box office.

Even pop star Katy Per­ry is cel­e­brat­ing Shark Week, and fur­ther cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the Left Shark from her Super Bowl half­time show, by team­ing up with jew­el­ry and acces­sories retail­er Claire’s on a Left Shark phone case.

Sharketing

All of this shark enthu­si­asm is clear­ly not lost on mar­keters – so much so that there’s even a port­man­teau: Shar­ket­ing.

As with any cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non like this, there are plen­ty of exam­ples of brands using #Shark­Week to churn out con­tent they hope gets noticed. But the fol­low­ing three cam­paigns real­ly take so-called shar­ket­ing to the next lev­el:

Narragansett Beer

Rhode Island-based brew­ery Nar­ra­gansett is hon­or­ing its role in the infa­mous can-crush­ing scene in Jaws by re-releas­ing the design of its 1975 can and pro­mot­ing the hash­tag #CrushIt­Like­Quint. Per Top­sy, the hash­tag has gen­er­at­ed about 500 men­tions.

And, accord­ing to a rep, the brand donates a por­tion of the pro­ceeds from the 1975 retro cans to the Atlantic White Shark Con­ser­van­cy.

Oberto Beef Jerky

The beef jerky brand want­ed to push the pro­tein-rich nature of its prod­ucts, so it went “fish­ing for the largest preda­tors in the world with a giant piece of beef jerky,” cap­tur­ing this video, which has about 370,000 views. The relat­ed hash­tag, #Jaw­Some­Jerky, has about 1,000 men­tions in the last week.

Volkswagen Of America

The Ger­man auto man­u­fac­tur­er, which returned for its fourth year as a Shark Week spon­sor, col­lab­o­rat­ed with Dis­cov­ery on

Sharks ReScored, an online expe­ri­ence and Dis­cov­ery-pro­duced doc­u­men­tary that is part of its Golf Sport­Wa­gen launch. Sharks ReScored is about chang­ing per­cep­tions of both wag­ons and sharks “and the col­lab­o­ra­tion aims to use music as a way to explore sharks, pro­vid­ing insight into how they are a vital part of the ocean’s ecosys­tem,” accord­ing to Volk­swa­gen.

Per the brand, the online expe­ri­ence includes: a trail­er of a mini doc­u­men­tary; the “Sport­Wa­gen or Shark?” game; and inter­ac­tive score footage that uses eye-track­ing tech­nol­o­gy to show how music influ­ences per­cep­tion of sharks. At the end of the inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence, fans can view the full three-minute mini-doc­u­men­tary about the mak­ing of the music that also aired dur­ing Shark Week.

Why Sharks?

Why not, say, bears? Or alli­ga­tors? Or giraffes?

Sharks are appeal­ing to con­sumers – and there­fore mar­keters – for two rea­sons: evo­lu­tion­ary and chem­i­cal, accord­ing to David Scott, for­mer CMO of ana­lyt­ics firm Fore­See Results and author of “The New Rules of Lead Gen­er­a­tion: Proven Strate­gies to Max­i­mize Mar­ket­ing ROI”.

“From an evo­lu­tion­ary per­spec­tive, we’ve been taught to fear and admire preda­tors. It allowed us to sur­vive,” Scott said. “That same reac­tion also releas­es endor­phins that give us a rush of adren­a­line. That adren­a­line feels good. Makes us feel high.”

In addi­tion, Scott Hamu­la, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor and chair of the Depart­ment of Strate­gic Com­mu­ni­ca­tion at Itha­ca Col­lege, said every­thing is com­ing up shark late­ly in part because the major­i­ty of con­sumers – from Baby Boomers to Mil­len­ni­als – have some emo­tion­al shared shark con­nec­tion, whether that’s from “Jaws” and SNL’s Land Shark skit or Katy Per­ry and “Shark­na­do”.

In addi­tion, Hamu­la said the unusu­al num­ber of attacks being cov­ered by the media this year have like­ly height­ened aware­ness and dis­cus­sion.

Will Blesch, CEO of strate­gic mar­ket­ing and advis­ing firm Break­through Busi­ness Brand­ing, said sharks are appeal­ing in part because they are aggres­sive hunters that usu­al­ly go out alone.

“They are unafraid to go after what they want,” Blesch said. “This lack of fear, this bold­ness, the fact that they usu­al­ly hunt alone, are all aspects that scream indi­vid­u­al­i­ty. That’s some­thing the aver­age Amer­i­can con­sumer iden­ti­fies with.”

Do you think sharks will con­tin­ue to res­onate with con­sumers, mar­keters and brands? Why or why not?