Marketing Musings of a Dog Enthusiast
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 … Read more
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
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
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
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more