Perroton, let run with your dog

Last ccm class we talked about how much money people spend in their pets, the eccentricities go from special water for dogs to spas and expensive accessories, actually according to Business Week “Americans spend an astonishing $41 billion a year on their furry friends,” isn’t crazy?

This topic helps me to remember one of the best experiential marketing events I have ever seen, the “Perroton” in Spanish, probably the best translation to English is the “Dogathon.”

Perroton is an annual event in Mexico City sponsored by Purina, especially DogChow, the idea is to run together with your dog races from 1k, 3k, 5k. This obviously is not a competitive race, instead, is an event to hang out with your family and dog in Mexican streets, a good amount of owners bring their dogs in costumes and at some point it was more a dog fashion show than a race.

From my perspective this is a perfect 360 marketing campaign because it includes advertising via different marketing vehicles (print, tv, radio, online and billboards), PR before and after the race, and demand generation since the registration required each competitor to buy at least two bags of DowChow.

The first Perroton dragged more than 2,000 runners plus their dog, and probably another 4,000 visitors; there were hundreds of runners in the waiting list. The registration included a free check up for each dog, a nice runner T-shirt for the owner and some merchandising. The success has been so big that every year the number of runners increases, and now the Perroton is held in two more cities in the Country.

The Perroton was a huge success in terms of PR, all newspapers, magazines and channels were interested about the event, it was covered by different section within the newspaper, from sports events, to business and show business, everyone was very interested about this, actually Purina managed to have “Celebrities” running the race with their dogs.

Other way to advertise the event was by the newspaper man, in Mexico the newspaper is still sold in the streets between stop lights, so many newspaper sellers were dressed up with the Perroton T-shirt during the week before the event, so you can imagine all the buzz it generates specially the first one in 2007.

During the race family members were able to see the race, then take a photo and expend the rest of the evening with their family and dog in a public park.

DogChow in Mexico is always targeting owners who want athletic dogs, rather than Beneful, which targets owners that want to spoil their dogs, so this type of efforts allow the brand to create a better connection to its target audience moving from superficial messaging to experiential attraction.