The Dog Marketing Blog

MediaPost reports that Purina and Oddcast have developed an application called Beggin Time which allows people to place themselves and a pet in a dance video which can in turn be emailed or “go viral” as we marketing folks like to say. The article refers to it as a Facebook app, but I could only request to be its friend from the Facebook side, I found it on the Beggin Strips website.  You pick your own human and pet face and then they dance to the Beggin Time “Can’t Top This” song sung to the tune  of  “You Can’t Touch This.”  It is indeed fun and I couldn’t resist sending it via the Facebook and email options  to several friends.

In a move that I suspect might have dog breeders applying in droves, Virgin Mobile in Australia announced a policy allowing employees 5 days of paid leave when they acquire a new dog or cat under 10 weeks of age.  No mention of whether someone with newborn puppies or kittens is covered, but it sure sounds like it SHOULD apply to me.  The article also mentions that some companies are granting family leave type benefits to employees with sick pets as well.

Just started following Guy Kawasaki (me and 48K+ others) on Twitter; he seems to have more interest in pet issues than I expected, alerting the Twitterverse to an article on Truemors regarding the RSPCA’s intent to prosecute owners who are found “overdressing” their dogs.  This Daily Mail article gives more details on the situation.  I do admit to competing in both dog shows (no dog clothes allowed) and the occasional costume class, but I don’t particularly like the idea of dog as fashion accessory. That said, I think this is well within an owner’s right to enjoy their pet as they see fit and a long way from meeting any reasonable standard of animal cruelty.  Animal rights extremists  . . .

There’s a great interview with Marion Nestle, author of “Pet Food Politics” by Christie Keith on the Pet Connection blog. I loved that book and am very much looking forward to publication of her next one “What Pets Eat.”  The interview talks about the 2007 pet food recall, different ways to feed pets, and general issues with the food supply in this country.

Tim O’Reilly’s twitter alerted me to a new article on cloned dogs in the New York Times. The Korean lab that first cloned an Afgan hound 3 years ago is still at it, and his article profiles 4 dogs cloned from “Missy” a border collie – husky mix.  As a dog breeder, the cloning of dogs seems like a cross between cheating and giving up. That elusive “perfect” dog is still not here, and in a way, I like to think we’ll never get there, just continuing to work on our own approximations of that dog in our own interpretation of the breed standard intermixed with our own preferences in dog personality.  Although I’ve been very attached to each of my dogs and regret they leave us so soon, I also revel in the unique personality of each one and really don’t think I’d like to have the same dog over and over again when I can see that dog in it’s offspring’s eyes, but mixed with something else that makes each animal unique.

This morning NPR aired a story about a humane society auction of toy breed puppies seized at the LA airport. The puppies, imported from South Korea, were accompanied by forged documents stating the five week old puppies were 5 months old and had had the required innoculations for importation. Of the 30 dogs in the shipment all were in poor condition and only 10 survived. These puppies were turned over to LA Animal services which nursed them to health and kept them for 5 months. When deemed ready for placement, there was so much interest in the pups the shelter was required to hold an auction. Small dogs, especially purebreds, and puppies are rarely available in shelters, so this amount of interest in these animals that have all three characteristics is not surprising. The story quotes the shelter manager starting the auction by warning that the pups were likely from substandard breeding stock and had obviously had a traumatic start in life, so “Buyer Beware.”  A representative from the American Kennel Club is quoted as saying when they stepped up their enforcement of substandard kennels that they also saw an increase in imported puppies bound for pet stores.  The story makes it clear that importation rules are not being strictly enforced; that documents are readily forged, apparently inspectors are not trained to spot puppies so obviously underage for the required rabies innoculations as the ones in this story.

Packaged Facts continues to churn out pet food industry research with their latest report, “Health, Humanization and High Quality Ingredients” An excerpt from the product description page:

“At the same time, one thing marketers and retailers at all levels of the market cannot afford given the faltering U.S. and global economies is complacency. More than ever before the ability to convert pet owners to higher priced products—or keep them buying them—will depend on marketers’ success in communicating product benefits and tapping into the ever-potent human/animal bond. Helping to make the case are new celebrity spokespersons like Cesar Millan with his new Dog Whisperer dog food line, and Ellen DeGeneres with her co-ownership in Halo Purely for Pets, with other positive trends including rapid growth in the natural supermarket channel and an increasingly globalized market in which ingredients suppliers like Cargill are looking to stake a deeper claim in pet food (in Cargill’s case by specifically targeting the U.S. agricultural retail channel as well as global markets). At the same time, new products continue to flood the market, which saw more entries in 2008 than in any previous year.”

I’m all for health and high quality, the humanization trend I know helps manufacturers connect with pet owners and sell food, but since pets are not human, applying human standards to their feeding isn’t always the healthiest approach.

I just got notice from Packaged Facts about a report on the pet departments of natural food supermarkets.  There’s been strong growth in natural pet foods and this has carried over into expanded pet departments at natural food stores as well. I have noticed that my local favorite health food store, Zerbo’s, has greatly increased the amount of space allocated to pet foods over the past few years. From about a third of an aisle with a few supplements and two brands of food, to an entire side of one aisle with multiple food brands including a frozen raw food freezer, skin care products and treats. The report apparently contains deep dives into the pet departments at Trader Joes and Whole Foods as well as compiling industry statistics from a variety of respected sources.

One of my goals during this period of unemployment is to develop a “Plan B” income stream, so I’m working on developing my web analytics skills. I’ve talked a couple friends into letting me code and analyze their sites with Google Analytics and so far I’m working on the Key-Lore Kennels and Plaza Veterinary Hospital sites, I’ve got a few more I can add as well.  I never thought of my own dog site Nuance Bull Terriers had that much traffic, but it actually compares favorably to these two businesses. At least for now, if I nail this analytics stuff and give them some good SEO (search engine optimization) tips hopefully they’ll leave my site full of judge lists, brags and dog photos in the dust.   It’s good to have something concrete to work on as I read and re-read Web Analytics An Hour a Day and Google Analytics Short Cuts and work through the examples with real data.

I finally finished reading Pet Food Politics by Marion Nestle I delayed starting the book to read one of her earlier books, Food Politics which details the forces behind US food agencies and policies. Pet Food Politics details the the story behind the pet food recall of 2007 which was ultimately traced to deliberate melamine contamination of ingredients sold as wheat gluten to North American animal feed manufacturers. It’s a very scary tale with many many players in a not so well regulated or inspected world of international food supply.  The recent Chinese tainted baby formula scandal involves the same ingredient, added I’m sure for exactly the same reason, to inflate apparent  protein levels for a cost less than using the correct ingredients.  The book is fairly short and an easy read, but when you realize how inadequate the safeguards are for food in this country, not to mention the world, it’s an unsettling tale. My dog Marley has quite a few food allergies and one of the few meats she can eat is duck. I’ve been using duck jerky imported from China as a treat and just wonder how safe and how accurate the label is on that product.