Marketing Musings of a Dog Enthusiast
RetailWire alerted me to an LA Times article reporting on the death of Gidget, the Chihuahua best known for her role in the Taco Bell “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” campaign which ran from 1997-2000. Gidget was 15, and suffered a massive stroke at home. This Taco Bell campaign became a cultural icon, despite criticism both … Read more
More evidence of the resiliency of pet food and products in the recession appeared in a MediaPost article reporting on a study of grocery shopping behavior conducted by Digital Research and ThinkVine. Many respondents reported changes in their shopping behavior such as stocking up on sale items, using coupons and switching to store brands. Pet … Read more
CMD Global profiles a campaign by Pedigree in Germany which launched in 2008 to raise brand awareness and sales when Pedigree found its products trapped in a stagnant mid-market position. Growth areas in the industry were in value priced store brands and at the premium end of the market. Pedigree’s strategy leveraged the dog-owning public’s … Read more
The July issue of Petfood Industry magazine includes an article titled “Business is Barking” which summarizes Packaged Facts presentation from the 2009 Pet Food Forum. Although I have to call Packaged Facts out on their creative cropping of the Y axis on a few charts for dramatic effect, the overall message is positive for the … Read more
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 … Read more
Packaged Facts recently released the 3rd edition of its Pet Care Services in the US report. I haven’t seen any online summaries of the report yet, but I could glean a few insights from the table of contents available online. Total expenditures on pet care services in 2008 reached $23 Billion, hitting a 10 year … Read more
Via a referral from the Pet Biz Helper on Twitter, I discovered an article on the Small Business Trends site regarding pet-related franchises. The article quoted statistics from the American Pet Products Association regarding the strength and growth of the pet industry and then listed a number of “young” pet franchises. Most were in the … Read more
Primo Pads was a vendor at the Ann Arbor Kennel Club shows July 4th weekend, so I stopped by to purchase a pad for one of my dogs and exchange one that had been chewed. I decided to ask the business owner, Gary Berding, how he got into the business of making these durable, high … Read more