According to a Business Wire release out of Neptune City, N.J., Nylabone, the dog toy division of NASDAQ-listed Central Garden & Pet, announced its first chew toys made with real chicken, bison, venison, bacon and beef, and named actress Ashley Tisdale the face of the launch.
Read the release twice. "An iconic brand helping dogs live fuller, happier lives." "Redefining chew time." "An indulgent chewing experience." A seventy-year-old dog bone got a copywriter, a ticker symbol and a senior vice president with a title, and now it is serving venison to dogs. Your dog eats a human delicacy and the funniest part of that sentence is that nobody on the release thought that was odd.
The mechanism is older than the meat: a company with $3.1 billion in net sales needs a human face for a new SKU, so it borrows a "devoted dog mom" who has a fanbase and a good couch. Tisdale gets one line in the release, "It's a total win-win for this dog mom!", and the release never says what she won, or what the win even was. The dog gets venison. The shareholder gets a quote. Everybody chews.
The honest part is that the trade press ran it as industry news, in the same lane as recalls and new extruders, which is exactly what it is. Pet Age filed it under Industry Latest next to a brooder. The celebrity endorsement is not news. It is a supply chain, and the press release is the truck.
YOUR TURN: When a chew bone gets a wire release and an SVP quote, who is the customer: the dog, or the investor?
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