Marketing Musings of a Dog Enthusiast
The animal feed industry website All About Feed reports on research published by IBISworld which confirms the continued growth of the pet industry; several of these trends have been noted in the Dog Marketing blog previously. Veterinary services are growing fastest, with a trend toward continued specialization; increased owner awareness of these specialties further drives … Read more
Retailwire reported on research regarding pet category retail spending before and during the current recession. Pre-recession research showed that pet spending was less likely to suffer during a econonmic downturn than spending on groceries, household and luxury goods. However, data on actual spending in the fourth quarter of 2008 showed that pet owners shifted their … Read more
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 … Read more
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. … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
Ad Age shared a report from Martin Lindstrom regarding a clever dog food product placement in Venezuela. Master Dog food was a sponsor of the reality show La Granja Vip – a version of an international reality format known as The Farm. They wanted to integrate their brand with the show and decided to have … Read more
I got an email today from Packaged Facts announcing that one of their analysts, David Lummis, will be presenting at the Petfood Forum next week in Chicago. His topics will include the increased involvement of celebrities in pet food marketing (Rachel Ray, Cesar Milan), the influence of online marketing, and the trend toward organic/natural pet … Read more
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 … Read more