Promo - July 2008 - (Page 14)

B rian Q uinton Interactive Who Let the Dogs Blog? Purina’s online community makes pets part of the pack “On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog,” the cartoon says. But if you’re a dog and don’t care who knows it—or a cat comfortable with your feline side—then Purina has a social network for both you and your owner. It’s called PetCentric Place, and it’s one of a number of online initiatives pet brand Purina has either launched, relaunched or just buffed up in recent months, with an eye to strengthening ties with its human customers by getting more involved with its four-legged ones. The PetCentric Place social network lives at www.PetCentric.com, Purina’s portfolio Web site for all its pet care brands and for general pet-related content. Motto: “Places to Go. Things to Sniff.” Pet owners are a breed apart, of course, fundamentally defined by their relationships with their cats, dogs, birds, geckoes, ferrets, potbellied pigs et al. So Purina decided to use the PetCentric site to prove that it shares its customers’ DNA by offering them features that unleash their animal instincts. “It’s a site where we can present our brands to consumers in a fun, engaging and light way,” says Kristin Ryan Fauss, director of marketing at Nestlé Purina Petcare. “It’s a different way for consumers to experience our brands, other than going to DogChow.com or Beneful.com. We wanted to reach the pet-owning consumer by combining useful content—most of which we create ourselves—with engaging activities that will appeal to pet owners.” In December 2006 the site launched Doggie-Mail and Kittie-Mail, applications that let PetCentric users send ecards of avatar dogs and cats delivering recorded or textto-speech messages. The service, built by interactive agency Oddcast, quickly caught on with PetCentric.com’s 2 million registered users. Over the last two years, Purina has also added photo and video uploads to the site, encouraging content sharing among its registrants. The company has recently run voter contests to find the funniest pet-based comedy and charitable campaigns for animal homelessness. Late last year, Purina began sniffing around the notion of giving site visitors the chance to contribute more than just pet pictures and comments. The company called on the digital marketing expertise of St. Louis-based agency Infuz to help conjure up that community and manage it on an ongoing basis. The result last April was a fullfledged social network on the site called PetCentric Place that lets users submit complete social profiles a la Facebook, become friends with other members and enter into instant chats. And here’s the twist: The pets get to have their own profiles, friends and, theoPets and their owners can both run profiles retically at least, chats. on PetCentric Place . And as with other social sites, com—but the pets get befriending other members is part most of the views. of the lifeblood of the site. Owners can befriend one another. Pets can, too, through their profiles, and owners can even befriend other people’s pets. “It’s something we learned these users want to do,” says Infuz technology vice president Hans Gerwitz. “Some of them feel as close to the animals as they do to the owners.” Visitors who come to www.PetCentricPlace.com will see the newest pet profiles. The info in these includes their pet peeves and favorite places, favorite pet foods (wet and dry, with frequencies) and “messages,” such as “Be persistent in trying to get adopted.” It’s all in the service of increasing traffic and encouraging repeat visits. Before the PetCentric Place launch, much of that site traffic was driven through the Purina newsletter and through mailings to the in-house list, with much of the W For more articles on interactive marketing go to www.promomagazine.com/interactive Newsletter Web RSS Webinar Conference Podcast 14 JuLy 2008 / WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM / Promo http://www.petcentric.com http://www.PetCentric.com http://www.petcentric.com http://www.petcentric.com http://www.DogChow.com http://www.Beneful.com http://www.PetCentricPlace.com http://www.promomagazine.com/interactive http://www.promomagazine.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Promo - July 2008

Promo - July 2008 Contents Editor's Note Shelf Help Beautiful Bovines Rest Stop Who Let the Dogs Blog? A Helping Hand Commentary Solid Gold Q and A: Mighty Mattel Flying the Coup Putting E-mail in Motion Resource Center The Agency Center The Young Prefer Mail Index of Advertisers

Promo - July 2008

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