Coordinated Marketing

Do the Right Thing by your Pet

While typing out the previous entry I was watching a DVR rerun of "Flip This House."  In the episode "Brotherly Love" JD and Paul are up to their old antics renovating and flipping a home in Connecticut.  Apparently the home was previously occupied by tenants that were tied to the previous owners.  Unfortunately when they go to inspect the property they find an abandoned dog nearly starved to death on the property.

After doing the right thing and calling Animal Control the dog is taken away to be adopted by another owner.  The officer responding to the scene thanks the crew for "doing the right thing" and calling animal control.  I did not notice any official designation on the vehicle nor a State ID Plate so I am going to guess doing the right thing in this case cost the crew some money.  It was nice to see as these guys do seem to be legitimate on the order of Trademark Properties down in South Carolina before they bailed for another network.

With that said I figured it was worth a minute to mention that almost all shelters will take your pet for free or for a minimal donation.  Although it may seem that leaving your pet is the best idea or letting it go wild those are horrible solutions.  Roaming free pets live a horrible life and can do damage to the environment around them before often succumbing to a miserable death.  If you are forced to give up your pet do the right thing and leave it at a local shelter.

A great place to start your search would be the ASPCA and from there you should be able to find a list of local shelters if there is not a state branch of the ASPCA in your area.  You can search your favorite search engine with your state and SPCA to find your local branch.  For those looking for a pet you can help significantly reduce the population and financial strain of unwanted pets by adopting.  There are thousands of local and state organizations such as Animal Shelter and PetFinder that help in both the search for a pet you want to adopt and a pet you need to drop off.  Do the right thing with your pet and leave it with responsible individuals, not abandoned and starving. 

My Orbit Appears to be Shrinking

File this under "sign of the times."  Has anyone else noticed the ever decreasing portion size of goods during this economic slide?  Heading out today to meet a friend for brunch I stopped to grab a pack of gum.  After picking up my favorite brand and flavor of Orbit gum I headed off to meet my friend.   All was well up to this point.

After eating I popped a piece of gum into my mouth which much to my surprise is about 20% smaller than the last pack I had purchased.  Is this really what it has come to?  The economy is so bad that even gum is being downsized?  I understand that during the last year with the price spikes in oil and transportation manufacturers had no choice but to raise prices or downsize the products but chewing gum?  As it is now the new pieces are so small they are almost useless and this is a perfect example of how not to market your product.  The extra ten cents they could have applied to the product cost would not have forced me to switch brands, needing to chew twice the gum has and will and they have now lost a customer.

This trend seems to be accelerating.  Everything from toilet paper to Tide detergent is showing up on the shelves in smaller and smaller portions.  Has anyone else noticed that almost all laundry detergents are now only available in "2x" versions that offer 50-75% less actual detergent?  The idea is that cleaning performance has increased by an equal amount but is that really the case?  In cleaning my own clothes I am noticing that the supposedly more powerful products are often anything but more powerful.  What is also discouraging is the fact that despite the brilliant exterior packaging manufacturers seem to make it almost impossible to see the correct portion side inside the cap.  Tide for instance as well as Arm & Hammer use a tone on tone setup inside the cap and use print that even someone with 20/20 vision has a hard time seeing with anything but a flashlight.  The result I am sure is that we all end up using more than what is required and as a result end up back in the stores buying more detergent sooner.  The net result for the environment is even worse as we are now dumping more nutrients into the environment.   Tide, Arm & Hammer and the rest should clearly mark the measuring cups using white on dark or dark on white printing so we all can easily measure out the correct portions.  With a detergent bottle now costing $7 to $15 the extra 1 penny in ink costs should be part of the process.

Customers need to speak with their dollars and demand these types of changes.  Otherwise the trend will continue and these stealth 20 and 30% price increases will become the normal state of affairs.  You can contact Tide via their Tide Contact Us page and let them know what you think of their new measuring caps.

Oil Prices Going Up As Economy Falters

Oil prices are again rising and prices at the pump are back up over $2.00 per gallon in many parts of the country.  This despite a report this morning from ADP indicating 742,000 jobs were lost in the United States during March 2009.  With the economy effectively in a free fall you have to wonder how oil prices can continue to rise.

Looking at the supply side it was reported this morning that OPEC countries did not even come close to fully complying with requests to cut production.  Instead some 3 million barrels of oil above the quota were produced recently.  Here in the United States crude oil supplies rose by 2.8 million barrels topping expert opinions by 500,000 barrels.  Inventories are up for the last month which only supports the fact that our economy is in shambles.  Hammering the point home further gasoline stocks were up 2.2 million barrels when they were expected to fall by 1.2.  So much for expert predictions as they were once again clueless.  Heating oil and other products increased by 200,000 barrels versus an expected drop of almost a half million barrels.  The full EIA Inventories Report is available on-line.

This begs the question of how in the world we are seeing rising prices in the heating oil and gasoline markets?  The answer is simple as speculators and fund managers flock to commodities to make money.  There is no economic basis for what we are seeing, supplies continue to rise capacities at our refineries are nowhere near maximum and worldwide demand is weak.  GasBuddy.com among other sites will help you save a few dollars as you find lower priced alternatives.

Prices are down across the board today but I wonder how long it will take those in power to realize oil prices and in the end gas prices had a huge hand in the economic collapse in terms of consumer spending which coupled with the financial meltdown made a bad problem a historic problem.