The Dog Marketing Blog

Snausages Breakfast Bites

Advertising Age reports on the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Social Media conference with a clip showing Forrester’s Josh Bernoff discussing the research that DelMonte did amongst their I Love My Dog online community to develop Snausages Breakfast Bites.  The parallels between canine and human product marketing are so clear (who buys the dog food?) Here we have a product which in my opinion, is a treat of questionable nutritional value promoted as a healthy breakfast food through the inclusion of calcium and antioxidants.  Now I think additional antioxidants are a good thing, but most dog foods already are balanced in terms of vitamins and adding calcium alone is not a great idea, especially for large breed puppies.

Petfood Industry News published an article about the increasing use of celebrities in dog food and product marketing.  Rachel Ray collaborated with Dad’s to create a  pet food  line called Nutrish, Cesar Milan has a relationship with Petco, Martha Stewart and Purina and Ellen Degeneres’ relationship with Halo foods are all detailed in the discussion.  For manufacturers using celebrity endorsers, there is always a risk/reward analysis to be made. A popular celebrity will raise awareness, but they must be seen as credible endorsers – not quite as much an issue with pets than say a car brand, and the manufacturer always runs the risk of celebrity controversies which can damage their brand as well.  In the case of celebrities launching products under their own label, a manufacturer can benefit through the additional production, but relies on the celebrity to do effective marketing to support  demand.

MediaPost reports that AOL has just launched a pet portal named PawNation.com.  This news comes just shortly after Yahoo! closed its Pets section, integrating that content into its Shine lifestyle section.  Purina, noted as the launch sponsor seems to be the only display advertiser at present, although text ads also appear in some sections. The photo gallery section offers pet owners opportunities to upload their photos for integration into the site.

I spent last weekend at the Midland Michigan Kennel Club dog shows. These are fairly small shows with a limited number of vendors, but it’s the second all breed show I’ve attended in the past month where Canidae had a booth. This is a brand I’ve been familiar with as a holistic, high quality dog food and cat food (Felidae), but not one widely used among dog show people. I saw it as almost a cult brand popular with people who were dog “foodies” who subscribe to Whole Dog Journal.   Canidae is making a deliberate effort to target show people this year, reaching out with fairly large displays, sampling, and coupons. The representative I talked to mentioned that the company recognized how influential breeders could be and decided to reach out to them.  Canidae offers a  breeder/multi pet discount program which allows people with multiple dogs who are also active in dog activities to get one bag of dog food free for every five purchased. I asked if they were going to get into sponsoring shows, as  Eukanuba and Purina have done and was told they are considering it.

A new follower on Twitter looked like a dog person, so I followed back and then she sent me a direct message (DM) which is not uncommon.  She invited me to contact her for dog training advice, again not that uncommon, especially since  you’d have to dig through my Linkedin profile that I reference on Twitter to realize that I already know a great deal about the topic.  But I was surprised to find the link she provided was to “Secrets of Dog Training” written by an entirely different person.  Affliate marketing, gotta love it!

Pet Food Industry News reports that Mars’ Pedigree brand will launch vegetarian dog food in India. These products are meant to appeal to vegetarian owners, and according to an article in MyDigitalLifeFC, more than half of all Indian dog owners would prefer to feed vegetarian. Although we tend to think of dogs as carnivores, they actually are  scavengers and can survive on vegetarian fare if protein and other nutrient levels are sufficient. Vegetarian dog food is availabe in the US from AvoDerm, Natural Balance and Nature’s Recipe as well as some smaller manufacturers.  Although this is a Dog Marketing Blog, I would like to note that cats truly are carnivorous and may not thrive on a meat-free diet.