Marketing Musings of a Dog Enthusiast
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
MediaPost reports that Purina is launching an interactive screen saver application called the Unforgettable Tail to promote its Chef Michael’s brand of dog food. The food is described as both mass market and upscale, which I interpret as available in mass retailers at a high price point. I did see Chef Michael’s in online and … Read more
I recently encountered an online dog supplies company called Oh My Dog Supplies on Twitter. Since following them, I’ve been impressed by their use of social media. I checked out the website, which features an interesting collection of premium quality dog products with a guarantee that you won’t find any of their items at a … 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