The Dog Marketing Blog

I’ll admit being a sucker for marketing featuring photos of Bull Terriers! I found  Fetching Tags through their social media outreach on Twitter. The company sells premium custom dog tags, made of brushed aluminum. While lacking a bit in the amount of information they contain compared to other, more practical tags like those from Boomerang Pet Tags , Fetching tags offers tags of a whimsical, decorative nature that can be personalized with a pet’s name and owner’s phone number.  A premium product that allows dog owners to show their pet’s personality while also providing a practical reason to justify the purchase.

An alert on the Eurodogtraining blog led me to news of a new product announcement from Mattel: Puppy Tweets, a device that allows your dog to send tweets via a collar tag.  The tag responds to noise and motion and sends one of several tweets in response to your dog’s activity (or lack thereof.)   Details on how the device works were a little sparse, apparently the collar device sends data on sound and motion to a USB sensor mounted on your computer, and you leave your dog’s Twitter account signed in while you’re out.  I find it similar in concept to the  sensor-based TweetingBar account which reports on the beer keg’s status in the New York office of digital agency 360i.

Puppy Tweets allows your dog will join a number of other tweeting canines, most of whom have more than a few canned responses to share.  The only practical use I can see is to check on a dog with barking issues when left alone.  I don’t as a rule follow dog accounts that only tweet items of interest to dogs  and I don’t plan on signing up any of my canines when this product launches in the fall.  For $29.95 it might be an amusing novelty to some, but for I can’t see it catching on with anyone who is serious about either dogs or Twitter.

The Pioneer Press reports on TwinCities.com about Minneapolis-St.Paul area animal shelters use of social media to publicize and place rescued pets. They discuss the social media strategies of the Animal Ark, Animal Humane Society, and the Minnesota Valley Humane Society All three organizations have established both Twitter and Facebook accounts. The AHS also has a YouTube channel and a Flickr account but these accounts are dedicated to the organization’s activities,  not specific adoptable animals.

All the organizations profiled seem to think that the social media outreach has resulted in more traffic to their adoptable animals’ pages, and the AHS has seen its donations increase, in a year when many charitable organizations have seen them fall.  Animal Ark cited several stories of animals adopted shortly after adding the “Add This” link sharing service to their profiles.  The MVHS feels that potential adopters  like the social media outreach, but the staff time to keep these additional sites updated is a drain on resources, free isn’t always completely free!

The Snif Tag collar based RFID tracking system for pets was dropped as company founders re-purpose the technology into a product that tracks hand washing by health care workers.   The product, which originated in the MIT Media Lab’s Physical Language Workshop, launched in late 2005 and was profiled in high profile media including Wired and the New York Times.

Described as “social networking for dogs,”  SNIF was a product in search of  a market. The collar-leash combo provided information about a pet’s activity level while the owner was not present and its interaction with other dogs wearing the same tracking device.  I would  suspect that anyone willing to shell out almost $200 for the electronically enabled collar and lead set might not let their pet far out of their sight, rendering this second piece of data redundant. If the pet would get out of sight of the owner, there was no way for the owner to find a lost animal using the SNIF tag; a function that is available through some GPS enabled collars.

The SNIF website is still up with links to its news coverage, but the product ordering and retailer locator functions are no longer providing data on the discontinued product. The inventors mention they may re-introduce the product later with a more robust marketing budget, but I will be surprised if it fulfills the initial hopes for its success.

PetCentric Logo

I recently got my first email from Petcentric with a link to their site, which launched in 2006.  In a 2008 article in Promo Magazine the site is described as a social network, however most of the content is provided by the site’s owner, Purina and select partners, such as Yahoo! Answers (pet section.) There is content galore, including news about pets, pet blogs, pet games,  reviews, a pet service locator and pet photos and videos, which include user-generated content.  The site also has its own Twitter account @petcentric There is very little overt promotion of Purina products, although Purina sponsored events are a rich source of content for the site.  Just further evidence of Purina’s commitment to digital media with this engaging site that supports pet owners interests and in turn the Purina corporate brand identity.

Chihuahua enjoying Kwispelbier

Latest sighting in the humanization of dogs trend – my latest Dogs in Canada newsletter has arrived with an article about dog beers.   The article profiles three dog-targeted brews, Kwispelbier from the Netherlands, Australia’s Dog Beer created by an enterprising pet retailer, and the US entry,  Bowser Beer.  Bowser Beer even has its own Facebook page. Producers of these beverages claim they offer the product to raise awareness of the hazards of giving beer to dogs and allowing people who just can’t resist sharing a brew with their dog a safer option.  My opinion? Your dog (and your pocketbook) will be better off if he or she drinks fresh, clean water.

Nutro dog food logo

Petfood Industry reports that Nutro has partnered with Meetup.com to sponsor 60 Meetup groups. The sponsored groups include a variety of  existing dog Meetup groups across across North America, including specific breed groups, rescue groups and the Denver Yappy Hour all-dogs social group.  Nutro is hosting a kick-off Meetup on September 16, in New York City which features an appearance by celebrity veterinarian Dr Marty Becker. It’s not clear how the groups were selected for this promotion, although I do see that groups can signify that they are seeking sponsors and Meetup will facilitate the process for sponsors wishing to sponsor 50 or more Meetup groups.  On the promotional webpage for its Meetups, Nutro also mentions its Facebook fan page however, I see no mention of the Meetup there.

Petco Logo

An article from the San Diego Union Tribune talks about the social media strategies of two area businesses, one of which is Petco.   Petco learned that employees were talking about the company on both Facebook and Twitter and decided to leverage those tools for the brand.  On Facebook, Petco has both a fan page and a group; the group encourages people to become a fan.  Petco also has an official Twitter account a YouTube channel and a blog on their main site; links to their social media accounts appear on the blog page. Not only does Petco use popular social media sites extensively, they also promote a pet-centric online community with zootoo.com through the Petco.com site.

Petfood Industry reported on promotional efforts by HBH Pet Products on behalf of their No Grainers dog treats. These include a photo contest  co-sponsored by WalMart which is offering a $200 gift card as one of the prizes. They also ran a Twitter contest; consumers who follow HBH pet products and re-tweet (RT) a message about the contest were entered into a daily drawing to win a clicker and some treats.   The company has also launched both Facebook group and a Facebook page, allowing consumers to join or declare their fandom, respectively. I know I’ve seen debates as to which is better for commercial promotion and MBH seems to have come down squarely on the side of trying – both.

At the time I checked, which was after the Twitter contest concluded, the company had 200 followers, 17 group members and 6 fans, so I can’t say they’re getting the word out effectively. I often see promotions like this mentioned in MediaPost, but this one I have so far only seen mentioned in Petfood Industry, which has deeper coverage of industry promotions, but I would not think is as widely read. Of course, pet treat BUYERS are the ones who really need to know in order to improve these numbers.

Putting my consulting hat on, I’d recommend creating branded identities for No Grainers apart from the manufacturer in social media and also putting more investment into mass media to get the word out to dog owners about the treats – and the contest.   Grain-free products are riding a trend in pet food at the moment so there seems to me to be an opportunity to better leverage PR in support of this brand even if ad budgets are limited.

MediaPost reports that Dogtime Media has just launched the Save A Dog Facebook application with the support of Frontline as its exclusive advertiser through September. The application allows users to check out adoptable dogs by breed and location, and then virtually foster, walk, and send dogs to their friends. Points are earned for downloading the app and all virtual interactions with the rescue dogs.

For every 2500 points earned, DogTime will donate the equivalent of one cup of food to rescuegroups.org, a technology provider which creates online solutions for rescue groups and will use the funds to lower the costs of their services to those groups.  This is the first time I’ve seen an organization looking for volunteers to provide technical services rather than the traditional food, toys and pet supplies for rescue.

A comprehensive campaign is planned utilizing DogTime’s network of advertisers, bloggers, and newsletter subscribers as well as its Twitter stream. Partners Frontline and rescuegroups.org will also participate in campaign extensions.

A personal criticism of the application’s functionality: The breed selection tool could be better, as my search for Bull Terriers near my zip code yielded hundreds of pit bulls, but I saw no actual “English” type Bull Terriers such as I own. Which reflects the balance of those breeds in rescue, I’m sure, – I just wish the listing “Bull Terrier” was better targeted to match the dogs.  This problem may be limited to breeds with similar names, but it reduces the attractiveness of the app for people who can’t find dogs like the ones they own to send to people who also own those dogs (who happen to make up the majority of my Facebook friends.)