The Dog Marketing Blog

Just saw a RT (re-tweet) from PetSmart about Marriott International’s tweet that there was a special promotion for travellers with dogs at the Fairfield Inn in San Diego. The $75 pet fee is waived and a variety of special dog items are offered; special good through April 27, 2009.  I was hoping to use my Marriott Miles to stay at Fairfield Inns on our trip last year from Detroit to Orlando, which requires an overnight stay. Unfortunately, the dog fee exceeded the cost of staying at a Red Roof Inn or Super 8 and I could not use the Marriott Miles to pay for it.

PawLux just started following me on Twitter. The Paw Luxury website is doing a lot of things right; their core business proposition focuses on sustainable, high end dog accessories and treats. Not a large selection, but focused on that proposition, which encompasses the hottest trends in pet marketing today.  They’re announcing specials on Twitter, and rewarding visitors for retweeting and blogging about their site; pretty darn Web 2.0 savvy.  They don’t really explain how it’s sustainable (and I couldn’t find the dimensions, either) but the Bella Bed is adorable!

Having recently been encouraged to use Twitter, I’ve started my usual obsessive learning curve with any new thing of interest. After signing up to follow my friends and some leading lights of the tech world and web analytics, I turned my attention to finding other dog fanciers.  Which led me to the Dog Show Secret site.  This is one of those sites that I can’t quite figure out which probably means it’s a money-making scheme I don’t fully appreciate. There are a number of oddly phrased articles that make me think they were written by someone whose first language is not English, whose real passion is not showing dogs, but who has studied up on search engine marketing.  The advice on dog show outfits isn’t too far off, the one on dog show ribbons is inadvertently hilarious to anyone who’s shown more than one dog to its championship, and the one on show dog shampoo is just plain wrong. That said, the Tweeter dog_supplies which led me to the site has some pretty good tweets on interesting dog products, so I’m a follower . . .

Small world department, Rhonda Collins, who I met at a Motor City Connect networking event mentioned she has connections to Dara Foster, originally from Michigan, who writes the PupStyle blog and who recently appeared on the Today show. I missed the show, actually I’m not much of one for dressing my own dogs up, although Anna Nicole competes in the costume class at Bullyolympics every year (she is a perpetual bridesmaid there. )  A lot of people do enjoy dressing their dogs and there is clearly a market for some high end dog duds.

I read a MediaPost article today about consumer package goods (CPG) company recalls which mentioned the US Food Safety website dedicated to food safety and recalls for human foods in the US.  The Pet Connection website was the leader in chronicling the 2007 melamine-related pet food recall, but I don’t think there are any consumer facing sites doing what the  US Food Safety site is doing on the pet side.  If I was more of a “pet foodie” I think I’d be investigating that space.

UPDATE: I’ve since learned about Susan Thixton’s The Truth About Pet Food site which examines pet food safety.  Susan takes a more activist perspective than US Food Safety, but she does cover pet food recalls, which often parallel recalls of similar ingredients in human foods.  Susan offers a newsletter and uses Twitter to announce news items.

It’s about time I did some posting. Amazing how being employed and pursuing multiple awards and titles on three dogs simultaneously can interfere with my attention to this blog, which has lately been limited to attending to an amazing number of spam comments.

I can’t quite remember how I stumbled into this, I’m pretty sure I first found either an automotive or web analytics collection of blogs on Alltop. They do a great job of aggregating the top blogs in a given subject area, not just based on volume but also with an intent of finding less visited gems. I haven’t visited EVERYTHING in this collection yet but they include blogs from people who cook for pets, pet owner advocates, veterinarians and animal rightists. A very interesting cross section of the world of people who care about pets and issues affecting pets.