PPM Article: Christmas Marketing Ideas

How to market your independent pet store during the Christmas season– Article by XOXX and Pooch & Mutt owner, Guy Blaskey, published in the trade magazine PPM (Pet Product Marketing).

Make this Christmas a Cracker

Christmas is fast approaching. There are the obvious ways for retailers to benefits from the Christmas buzz, like selling the special edition foods, treats and toys, but there is also a lot more that you can do at this time of year to promote your store, build sales now and build a customer base for the next year.

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PPM Article: Romancing your customers

How the dating game and selling to your customers are similar – Article by XOXX and Pooch & Mutt owner, Guy Blaskey, published in the trade magazine PPM (Pet Product Marketing).

Imagine a young man in a bar, he sees a girl that he is attracted to. His aim is to get her in to bed. He could go straight out and ask her if she’d like to come home with him. Chances are that she will say ‘NO’… or throw a drink in his face. She may say ‘yes’ straight away, but if she does she is probably not the kind of girl that he would want to get into bed with and definitely not one he would want to have a long-term relationship with.

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Advertising: Blue Chip Calmers

Above is the press advertising for the launch of the new Blue Chip instant calmers for horses.

As mentioned in the post about the development of the calmers, we identified that our job was not to launch the concept of an instant calmer (as there are already many on the market), our job was to differentiate the Blue Chip calmers from the competition. We did this by focussing on the natural flavourings of the calmers.

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PPM Article: Location based AdWords

How physical stores can benefit from online advertising with Google AdWords. – Article by XOXX and Pooch & Mutt owner, Guy Blaskey, published in the trade magazine PPM (Pet Product Marketing).

I have heard many pet store owners complain that online retailers have taken a lot of their trade. One way you can get it back is by using Google AdWords.

Adwords are the sponsored ads that come up at the side of the web page when you search for a product on google. Below is a picture of what comes up when you search for ‘pooch and mutt’. As you can see, the top 3 results and the 3 results on the right are in a section called ads. These ads are paid-for ‘AdWords’ ads. However you don’t pay for them to show, you only pay if someone actually clicks on the ad, which makes them extremely cost effective if done well.

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Packaging Design & Product Development: Blue Chip Calmers

Applecalm and Carrotcalm are two new instant calmers for horses, from Blue Chip Feeds.

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PPM Article: Profits from Passion

Profits from Passion. - Article by XOXX and Pooch & Mutt owner, Guy Blaskey, published in the trade magazine PPM (Pet Product Marketing).

Jamie Oliver is not a writer, but he is the second most successful author in the UK (after JK Rowling) with £101.55 million racked up in book sales.

Jamie Oliver was never a head chef and he never got a Michelin Star, but he makes far more money from restaurants than Michelin-starred chefs like Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal and Marco Pierre White.

Jamie Oliver reportedly does not buy food in supermarkets, but made approximately £13 million over 11 years from Sainsbury’s.

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Logo Design: Rachel Winham Interior Design

This is the logo that we designed for Rachel Winham, a London based interior designer.

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PPM Article: Location Based Marketing

Location, location, location: How location based marketing can help your business. - Article by XOXX and Pooch & Mutt owner, Guy Blaskey, published in the trade magazine PPM (Pet Product Marketing).

On May 26^th Google announced the launch of ‘Google Offers’ and ‘Google Wallet’ in the US. Google wallet will allow you to pay for goods by touching your phone to a sensor in a shop, using NFC (Near Field Communication) technology – similar to how you use an oyster card on the tube in London. Because the NFC chip will be built in to smartphones the phone will ‘learn’ where you shop and what you buy. This will then work in tandem with Google Offers, which will notify you about special offers on the items that you regularly buy in areas that you normally shop, so you can get the deals. There is no launch date for Google Offers and Google Wallet in the UK at the moment, but there are existing location based marketing services that could easily benefit pet stores and pet brands..

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Packaging Design, Product Development & Advertising: Pooch & Mutt Slimmin’ Tonic

Slimmin’ Tonic is the weight loss supplement for dogs from Pooch & Mutt.

XOXX was involved in all aspects of the product development for Slimmin’ Tonic (with the exception of the nutrition side of the development) including: Read the rest of this entry »

Logo Design: Arch to Arc

Logo  designed for the amazing Arch to Arc challenge.

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