Buzz Builder

Dogs In the City Builds Loyalty with Careful Screening

My beautiful wife Ellen, who grew up with German Shepards, convinced me that having a dog is an amazing experience. Never having owned a dog, I was skeptical; however, her constant buzz about dogs won me over.

We've lived with a fun loving female boxer name Bella for almost a year now, and she has won a place in both our hearts with her humor and affection. But, I must confess to feelings of jealousy when her Typepad blog has more readers in a week than mine - she even gets fan mail.

Owning a dog has opened a window into a world that I never imagined filled with other fanatical dog owners, vets, specialty store, etc. I've been particularly fascinated with doggy daycare centers that are sprouting up like mushrooms throughout Portland, Oregon where the number of households with dog exceeds those that have children.

We've been taking Bella to Dogs in the City, a brand new doggy daycare facility near our home in Northeast Portland over the past months, and we've been thrilled with the care and respect with which all the dogs are treated. To be honest, I love the place because Bella spends so much time romping with her buddies that she comes home exhausted, and we can get work done  while looking at a cute sleeping dog.

Recently, I was visiting with Keri, the owner of Dogs in the City, and she told me about telling one of her clients that her dog would be no longer allowed to use the daycare center. She was concerned that the dog she ended up banning was just too aggressive around other dogs. A few weeks before, we learned that another dog from an influential person in Portland's dog community was kept from attending Dogs in the City too for similar reasons.

I 've got a lot of respect for Keri taking a hard line towards dogs that don't get along well with others.  I certainly wouldn't want anything to happen to Bella, and I'm sure that the other dog owners feel the same about their pets. It's tough for Keri to keep dogs out of her daycare center when she has a big space to fill and bills to pay. Yet, ultimately her policy will engender positive word of mouth which will surely bring in many more dogs that she decides to keep out for the good of the many. 

Word of Mouth Marketing Radio Interview

I recently posted a streaming audio  radio interview  featuring me on KUIK in Oregon speaking about the power of word mouth marketing. I talked about my first experience with buzz marketing when I broke the Guinness World Record for hammock swinging as a way to attract attention for my father's hammock stores. I succeeded in landing prominent coverage in newspapers and television stations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and hammock sales surged. Also, you'll enjoy some of my  easy-to-implement tips and ideas that any company seeking media attention should use.

If Al Gore Wants Maximum Buzz, He Should Launch His Presidential Candidacy at the Academy Awards on February 25

If former Vice President Al Gore wants to enter the 2008 presidential election with a splash, he has an incredible opportunity on February 25.  That's when An Inconvenient Truth is up for two Academy Awards (best documentary feature and best original song). If the movie wins an Oscar for best documentary, he should announce his presidential candidacy as part of his acceptance speech. If he doesn't win, he should leverage the spotlight on the Academy Awards and call a press conference announcing his candidacy immediately after the final Oscar is given.

Why make this announcement during or after the Academy Awards? There is no better way to grab the attention of the American public. In 2006, the Academy Awards attracted 38.59 million viewers with 26.57 million households watching. Only the Super Bowl attracts a larger television audience than the Academy Awards in the U.S. Gore can use the buzz surrounding his movie to draw attention to his efforts to sensitize people to the dangers of global warming and how to avert it. His work on this issue sets Gore apart the other candidates in th most crowded presidential field since 1928. That degree of difference would build buzz around Gore's candidacy which would quickly propel him into becoming the Democratic front runner.

Of course, there is another award ceremony that Gore might want to leverage. It was recently announced that he has been nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his wide-reaching efforts to draw the world's attention to the dangers of global warming.

"A prerequisite for winning the Nobel Peace Prize is making a difference, and Al Gore has made a difference," Conservative Member of Parliament Boerge Brende, a former minister of environment and then of trade, told The Associated Press.

The Nobel Prize winner is traditionally announced in mid-October, with the prize always presented on the December 10 anniversary of the death of its creator, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel.

In 2004, the Nobel Peace Prize went to Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, which Brende said shows the award committee's focus on ecological problems as a source of conflict.

"I think climate change is the biggest challenge we face in this century," Brende said.

To see more buzz about the possibility of Gore entering the presidential contest , check out Draft Gore.

An Inconvenient Truth trailer: