Taming “Wild Dogs” for a Good Cause

by Barry Silverstein—brandchannel.com (April 15, 2010)

Zimbabwe has many problems, including a wild dog population that’s in danger of extinction. But who wants to save an animal with a name like that, or a face that only its mother could love? The rebranding of the once-flourishing species is a great case study for brand marketers. Follow us into the bush as we track the critter’s trail as it seeks to shed its bad rap…

Dr. Gregory Rasmussen, a Brit who grew up in Zimbabwe, took a shine to the African canine, which doesn’t bark and shares little in common with a modern-day dog. With its habitat under threat and its numbers dwindling, Rasmussen came up with a new name – “painted dogs” – to reposition the mutt and win favor with animal-lovers.

Nicholas Kristof recounts how the perception change came about. Starting with a name change, Rasmussen coined the phrase “painted dogs” as an homage to the big-eared dogs’ spotted coats. More than two decades ago, he started the Painted Dog Conservation group to take care of injured animals, and realized he need to embark on a P.R. campaign to show rural villagers, who feared the dogs, that the painted dogs shouldn’t be perceived as an enemy.

Today he runs a children’s bush camp to educate students that painted dogs “don’t attack humans or prey much on livestock.” Rasmussen stresses how locals can actually “benefit from the dogs’ presence and gain incomes so that they won’t feel the need to poach wildlife.” In effect, Rasmussen is creating a conservation model for any endangered species.

As Rasmussen himself notes on his website, “with education and awareness programmes, (we’re) creating an environment whereby the dogs can move in status from ‘perceived pest’ to ‘best loved animal’.”

In an attempt to convince Zimbabweans to support the species’ conservation, he also incorporated folklore, “from African legends of witches that turn into hyenas, to the Berbers of North Africa, who believe that to kill a dog stains a human soul forever” and spread the word that “there is no record in myth or fact of a Painted Dog attacking or killing a human being. His latest battle addresses the international trade in painted dogs.

Kristof thinks it is Rasmussen’s successful rebranding of the dogs, along with his grassroots effort to involve local people in conservation, that “offers some useful lessons for do-gooders around the world… If clever marketing and strategic thinking can take reviled varmints such as ‘wild dogs’ and resurrect them (quite justly) as exotic ‘painted dogs’ to be preserved, then no cause is hopeless.”

Dr. Phil says: Animal Abuse–I’m sick to my stomach!

by Dr. Phil on his blog (May 10, 2010)

As you no doubt know, I’ve not hesitated to use this blog to take on animal abuse, especially when it comes to the vicious mistreatment of dogs through the so-called “sport” of dogfighting. And I really thought we were making some progress against dogfighting this past year with law enforcement officers making a couple of major national busts.

AP Photo

Then came the stunning news that the Supreme Court had struck down a federal law designed to stop the sale and marketing of videos showing dogfights and other illegal acts of animal cruelty. The majority of the justices said the law was an unconstitutional violation of free speech, because it was too broad and could, for example, allow prosecutions for selling photos of out of season hunting. As a result, the high court threw out the conviction of a Virginia man who sold vicious dog-fighting videos that he advertised in Sporting Dog Journal, an underground magazine devoted to illegal dogfighting.

I was sick to my stomach. Dogfighting is illegal in this country but selling a dog-fighting video isn’t? We’re seriously going to let people profit from their films of pets being abused? Is there anyone out there who thinks that is even close to being the right thing to do?

If anything, the Supreme Court decision only proves that we’ve still got a long way to go when it comes to protecting animals. That’s why we’re putting together a show that is going to shine a harsh spotlight on the animal abuse that still plagues our country. We’re not only going after people who think it’s perfectly acceptable to leave their pets cramped in cages with little or no water and blatant neglect, we’re going after those professional “dogfighters” who diligently train their pit bulls to fight other pit bulls to the death and every other form of abuse.

I’m sure you are going to find the show revealing. And if you know of anyone — someone in your neighborhood, someone from work, even a relative — who is abusing animals, let us know. We’ll try to do something about it. I promise you. This injustice cannot continue. It’s time to fight back.