Drew Broadley's Bottomless Pit of Rambling.

Marketing Idea #13 - Woof woof

Sick of those damn dogs barking throughout the day/night ? Ready to complain to the council, but knowing that it's going to take a fair bit of action before the owner really takes hold of how annoying their precious pooch is ?

A great community marketing scheme, due to people adopting a four legged friend and being ignorant to its needs, it causes a build up of frustration and stress which causes side effects of barking, tearing up the back yard and chewing to relieve this.

Currently when you complain to the council, they take the complaint and file it with a friendly "Thanks for getting in touch" reply. Second complaint gets a bit more action and a letter sent to the offending owner. Third complaint usually ends up in similar grounds of the result from the second complaint.
Nothing is being achieved, the owner isn't paying attention and most likely laughing at the letters. Here's where a better approach of the problem comes in. Education, and reasonable consequences...

Setup a council funded dog walking/dog care scheme, with a one/two representatives per region with animal behavioral training and dog obedience knowledge.
When a complaint comes in to the council they handle it as they normally do with one exception, the representatives do a quick check on the property. This allows them to assess the frustration and stress of the dog. What this achieves is two things:

1. Assesses the dog is not maltreated in anyway (within reason)
2. Confirms the problem at the indicated time(s)

Council records situation, and writes a reply letter to the owners property sharing the findings of the animal, and confirming if they also identified the problem and suggestions to educate the owner on why their dog may be causing disruptions. This gives a mediation type approach. A letter also goes out to the complainant stating what has happened, and what allocated duration they have before following up the complaint and any suggested non-confrontational methods they could use to communicate with the property owner.
Second complaint comes after the conditions haven't been met, and the owner is contacted stating their dog is still behaving in a manner as per the first complaint. They are notified that they will be visited in the evening of their choice so the council can initiate a dog walking service initially sponsored by the council to reduce the frustration of their dog and see if this improves the dogs behavior. Additional education is supplied to the owner on the system and introduction to the dog to the representatives who will be walking their dog.

The dog will go on a trial for two weeks, seeing if there is any immediate improvement. If there is improvement, then the council will supply the owner with enough education to complete their knowledge of animal behavior and why walking their dog is important. If there is no improvement, then owners are referred to a dog behavioral specialist.

If a third complaint arrives, then the council sends out a fine for the dog and the dog walkers come in and carry on their service until the fine value is reached. After each duration of dog walking has been completed, the council will reassess the situation with the owner.

This can also be offered as a subsidised dog walking service by the community council to reduce dog nuisance complaints to people who don't have time to walk their dog.

The dog walking service may not be feasible, but education and communication with the dog owners is a must.

Potential Clients:
Dog owners

Potential Mediums:
Interactive, Website, Print

Marketing Idea #12 - Cops and Robbers

Imagine you're racing around the tarmac, tires squealing, a cop on your tail with lights blazing. Is this a video game ? No. Sounds a bit too cliche ? Sure! But this is the appeal...

Put yourself up against the best on the NZ Police force. Setup on an open race track where you can backtrack on sections of the race track and the goal of the cop is to perform a pit maneuver and spin you 180 degrees to win. Identical cars are setup with bumper sections on the front/back to reduce damage and absorb impact. Cops have cars in the NZ Police force branding, and the "robbers" have cars in Dukes of Hazard or similar stereo-type paint jobs.

This can be used as training for NZ Police in the public eye to demonstrate how safe their apprehension methods are, and lets every person who has the want to see how good they are up against the people in blue. National qualifying events that boil down to a final at a defined race track.

This can become a community fundraising event and a great spectator sport annual event, with sponsorship from a car manufacturer. Potential to become a short life-span TV show or a recruitment drive styled event.

Potential Clients:
NZ Police, Defensive Driver Education (AA), Driver Training Companies (Holden, BMW, etc.)

Potential Mediums:
Interactive

Marketing Idea #11 - Design the perfect garden

Building a garden is easy, or is it ?

When creating the garden of your dreams, or even just digging out a section of your current landscaping it's always hard to know (unless you're an avid green finger) about what plants go well together, how they will survive in the position with exposure and sunlight hours a factor.

Building a garden simulator that uses basic CAD overview and taking into consideration plants that work well together, or don't work well, are hardy, last all year around, flower at certain times, you can offer the novice green fingers an insight into how their garden will look all year around.

A simple overhead layout, with ability to position a house, designate north/south/east/west, any shady spots, will give the to-be landscaper a chance to experiment their ideas. Allow them to chose from a large array of plants, they can place them in arrangement that suits them.
Using a seasonal timeline slider, and time of day slider, you can simulate how the plants will work together all year around. Show when each will flower, drop leaves, if they wont suit the shady area they've been placed in and if any of these factors don't work well with the plant it will die.

This will save people from making mistakes, and also allow the offering of advice by submitting your garden and suggestions can be received in return by experts to how they could better their intentions.

This would be a great interactive piece to place a large plant retailer behind. They can offer garden design competitions, even make a game of building the best all around garden from selected templates.

This could also be put in store as an interactive piece that people can select stock from the shop and place it in a landscape layout that is similar to their home. In-store experts can offer advice on the spot, and they can have it emailed to them or printed out at the store with the names of the plants and can place an order at the counter.

Potential Clients:
Palmers, other plant retailers

Potential Mediums:
Web, Interactive

Marketing Idea #10 - Strange Dogs

With the rise in awareness recently, and always subdued knowledge of dog attacks, there needs for user education to people who are afraid of dogs (previously or a little anxious with the news of stereotypical aggressive dogs attacking).

There's a common approach many people do, is walking towards a dog with their hand out. This is quite a highly dangerous manner to approach a dog, as they work by scent, then sight, then sound, and finally touch.

A TV/Radio/Internet campaign to educate people that the best thing to do is stand tall and still, avoid eye contact and let the dog sniff you. When the dog wants to interact with you, it will rub up against you, or give you a nudge or other playful signs. Most dog behaviorist can be used as reference and research for the campaign.

The aim is to stop people being afraid due to not understanding.

Potential Clients:
Councils, SPCA, Dogsafety.govt.nz

Potential Mediums:
TV, Radio, Web, Mail drop

Marketing Idea #9 - Paperless Receipts

On the previous idea of being green, one of the largest and most wasteful items out there is receipts.

The idea is simple, having a system that offers the ability for all PoS systems to hook into. The selling of the idea will be the hardest, as no one will want to invest in a system that don't "have too". To help with the blinkers that the potential outlets will put on, this is a great time to market this idea, everyone is focused on being less wasteful in the public eye.

With the rise in more disposable items due to manufacturing costs being lower, the products you buy today are generally more brittle. Alas, another main push for this system is the ability to look up previous purchases and provided an authorised receipt from quickly searching through an online system and clicking a 'Returning product' button which sends an signed request back to the retailer which provides them with the proof of purchase required when taking a product back.

Not only does the retailer/consumer receive the benefits of returning an item painlessly with a simple proof of purchase, but the retailer can use this system to reconcile for stocktaking, accounting and more.

Potential Clients:
Anybody who creates a receipt/invoice

Potential Medium:
Point of Sale, Web, Mobile

Marketing Idea #8 - Are you carbon neutral ?

Marketing Idea #7 - Faux Fundraising

Marketing Idea #6 - Chat Roulette

Marketing Idea #5 - Get In Behind

Got a dog ? Always wondered if the breed was any good at herding ? Setup a 1/4 acre with about 4-5 sheep and hire a proficient sheep dog trainer to train the household dog.

This is great to setup to do at a local dog park, or organised event. The dogs will have a lot of fun, and is a great time to push any dog food or dog accessories. Potentially a launch pad for a business to offer exercise sessions for dogs to give them the run of their life. Getting dog owners to register to collect direct marketing contacts, provide samples of dog food/training tools.

Prospective Clients:
Dog food manufacturers, AI&P/A&P Shows, Dog training business

Prospective Mediums:
Interactive

Marketing Idea #4 - Change the Toilet Paper Roll

How many times have you come to use the toilet in the house, and the toilet roll has been left empty? The woman of the household will appreciate this.

Incentive SMS, where there's a unique code with instructions on the roll of toilet paper, with such prizes to attract the men of the household. The instructions are as follows:

Person sending in the SMS must elect a phone number of another household member (preferably of the opposite sex). This will then send a confirmation to this person saying that +64xxxxxxxxx has entered the draw to win xxxxxx, but only if you confirm they have indeed changed the toilet roll by sending an SMS back with YES.

Potential clients:
Toilet paper manufacturers

Potential mediums:
SMS