What do the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Cesar Millan, and Bank of America have in common?
They’re famous, ubiquitous, and excellent marketers. Imagine if puppy people were as good at marketing as these three diverse entities are.
Puppy people who have learned how to market
Passionate people who believe in important causes aren’t always good marketers. And important messages get lost when passion overwhelms persuasion.
But I’ve seen some exciting examples of puppy cause related marketing.
- Pup Fan recently shared her efforts to help a local rescue organization by taking photographs of dogs up for adoption. To see the inspiration for her efforts, check out these before and after adoption photos by professional photographer, Seth Casteel. You’ll love them.
- Edie Jarolim of Will My Dog Hate Me has been running a series of Pet Adoption Videos that Don’t Make Me Want to Kill Myself. It’s fabulous. My favorite is here.
- Finally, I’d like to refer you to Mel Freer’s wonderful post, Dog #201: Why Petland Should Stop Selling Puppies over at No Dog About It. At the heart of good marketing is a story. Mel’s tale of meeting her puppy mill dog, Daisy, is an emotional and compelling story.
What examples of good marketing have you seen lately?
Thanks for the shoutout! That’s one of the favorite videos of my series too — and it wasn’t made for a shelter.
I’m not sure how the director uses it. But it would be great if it could be licensed to shelters to use locally. It would probably get a lot of attention for adoption.
Thanks for the link love! 🙂
I love that video you linked to on Edie’s site as well… there are so many good ones, but that one ranks up there for me too.
And Mel’s post was so moving – definitely a great example as well.
So agree with you on Edie’s video series. This particular video was my favorite one too!
Really awesome piece AJ!
The the results from that video shared by Pup Fan are really shocking, aren’t they? They look like two completely different dogs. They dogs in the after photos looked so much happier, so full of life. Whereas the dogs in the first photos just looked sad. People do care about animals but they don’t want to enter a depressing environment. Many people have this image of a shelter as a very negative, unhappy place and understandably they want to avoid that. Pet stores do a much better job of marketing themselves as positive places full of fun.
these are 3 reasons that I love the dog blogging world!
Good links. Classes in marketing should be required for anyone running a shelter. If advertising can get people to eat Big Macs, it can get them to do anything. 🙂
When I was blogging about all the black “less-adoptables” I couldn’t help but wonder whether even the rescuers are aware of the phenomenon. I mean it just seems logical to me that if they’ve got too many black animals (because allegedly they don’t stand out in the crowd), why not do something with them to help them stand out? I do realize I’m generalizing, but in this case, marketing is EVERYTHING.
And I agree with Jan, there should be a prerequisite course.
Great post! I think it’s important that we start moving our community of animal-loving people around to thinking and acting strategically instead of making decisions with our emotions. We are good people, yes. We just need to start making some better strategic moves to achieve our goals. Yay!!!!
I actually saw a lot of great posts on Blog the Change day this time around, and I noticed a concentrated effort against Petland. We don’t have any Petland stores here in our area, but I wouldn’t shop there if we did.
Thank you so much for the shout out Pamela. It was very kind of you to mention Daisy and me. I am actually extremely grateful you mentioned AJ’s post. I have been bogged down with some personal stuff and have been falling behind on my reading lately. I never would have seen it if not for you mentioning it.
I loved it! I am also inspired by AJ’s decision to offer to help. I have been thinking about doing the same thing for my Sheltie Rescue Group. I wonder if they would be interested?
I can only say thank you.
My contribution? Secondhand Hounds. They are a rescue group here in Minnesota and I think they have done an excellent job marketing their dogs and their rescue.
You should totally offer your photography skills to the Sheltie Rescue group! 🙂 I will say that I approached multiple organizations and some were not really interested at all. I think that groups who are smart about marketing their animals would be happy to have the help… as well as those with a lot of animals looking for homes. When they have so many, it’s probably hard to find the time to do individual photo shoots when there are so many other things to be done.
The video on Edie’s blog is so good! I had a sore face from smiling all the way through it … I don’t think I smile enough!
Yes, marketing and education (eg spay, neuter, adopt don’t shop), it would be great if education could be marketed in an entertaining way. Then perhaps there wouldn’t be a need for so much marketing.