Cell phones for Dogs and Early Viral Marketing

Now this is an innovative idea. Move over Bottom of the Pyramid, Drool of the Pyramid markets are emerging. Check this out:

The PetsCell - the first voice enabled waterproof GPS cell phone optimized for animals, will be available for distribution (from PetsMobility in) early in 2006.

The company even has its own media division!!!

Ruff Media - PetsMobility’s e-median division, “Ruff Media” has been set up to take advantage of the growing functionality that cell phones and hand held devices are playing in the everyday lives of consumers. PetsMobility has created proprietary content that will facilitate the interaction between retailers and consumers in the form of streamed sponsored infotainment.

Would that be "woof, I did it again" ringtones?

Lessons in Generating Awareness and Reaching your Audience

Interested or not in their product, there is however one good lesson we can all learn from this people.

They don't even have a product out there (first product expected in Jan 2006), but they have already set up an international virtual community around the interests of their target market.

Their "PetsMo - Community for Pet lovers" does several valuable things that contribute not just to marketing, but to research and product development:

1. Reinforces their brand (PetsMobility).
2. Generates content of interest to their potential customers (and therefore attracts them).
3. Enables their potential customers to register (aha) and participate in an interactive space.
4. Enables them to collect demographics on their potential customers (via registration form and traffic).
5. Enables them to determine preferences, behaviors and interests of their potential customers (by monitoring the forums, the traffic or via explicit forms and surveys).

In order to do so, they've been smart enough to:

• populate the portal with basic articles to motivate traffic and participation.
• configure their content management system so that generic content is available from any part or section of the portal, avoiding empty sections and disappointing "no articles in this section" messages.
• segment their portal according to serve local communities (which can help them understand better different local markets)
• set up the site so that, even without registering, the visitor selects his country, state, city, both for targetted content as well as for their own tracking of visitors.

As their example shows, there is no need to wait until you have a finished product in order to set up a community that provides feedback and revolves around the needs your product addresses.

There is no need to wait until February when you have a business plan or prototype to start working openly with others on your project/product and to open up to the world...

There is a lot to gain in letting people into your idea, project and product in the early stages, including things no market research, focus or usability group can ever discover or tell you.

Reference Web Sites for this note:

• http://www.petsmobility.com 
• http://www.petsmo.com