that's all, folks

Tonight, all ten groups in the New World of Branding and Advertising M-School course showed off all their hard work. We were given 15 weeks to come up with a feasible product that will strengthen the human-animal bond. Among Dogmatic Treats, other business start-ups were “pibble” hats, a ball made to ease separation anxiety, a bird cage without the cage, and a calendar of “ugly” shelter dogs. Each group’s project was exceptionally creative and you could see how much work each and every student put into their business. I was so excited to share all our hard work and passion with the 90+ guests that visited The Annenberg Petspace where our event was hosted.

We set up our booth like we did at the Farmer’s Market so it was nice that we already knew exactly what we wanted. We added more information about The Lange Foundation and a laptop showing our website. I brought Wiley, my golden retriever, who attracted tons of people to our table, but my oh my, was he more hyper than I expected. He is a very well behaved dog, but he still has puppy energy and just wanted to play with all the new friends he was making.

We organized our poster board starting with our inspiration from Brent Taylor, to our research, and to our design problem of...

How can we create a tasty treat that dogs will love – that is also healthy and sustainable?

This led to our packaging, our recipe, and our three activations: selling our treats on consignment at Bruno’s Cat and Dog Boutique, selling at the Playa Vista Farmer’s Market, and managing our Facebook Campaign and optimizing it. We concluded it with our $500 funding breakdown financial statement, our struggles, our lessons learned, and our total donation amount. Regarding the packaging, notice how our original packaging are these rectangular boxes. A few days before the Playa Vista Farmer's Market, we realized we would be short on boxes and they could not be delivered on time. So instead, we found the square boxes at a cheaper price and quicker shipping. We rebranded this as Dogmatic Treats' holiday packaging which was received well by the farmer's market and guests at the poster session. Just another way our Dogmatic Team had to be adaptable and how you can spin any challenge as a positive thing.

I enjoyed talking about the Facebook campaign to our guests because it was something that made our group a little different, and the subject greatly interests me. A lot of guests also enjoyed hearing about our lessons learned. We spoke about being adaptable like when the rain hit twice canceling the LMU Farmer’s Market, the importance of making your own connections like Martha Hall as mentioned in my last blog post, and learning that people will pay a higher price for quality and a good cause.

In total, the Dogmatic Team was able to donate $114.09 and 20 boxes of treats to The Lange Foundation after paying back the M-School $500 from our start-up fees.

The class was a TON of work, and yet, I cherished every moment. Dogmatic Treats became my life – ask my family and friends! Many of my extended family bought the treats during Thanksgiving break, and my friends who don’t even have dogs knew every detail. I even made a sale on a night out at a bar! (I’m 21 years old all good). But that is the point where Dogmatic Treats became my life and I don’t regret a moment. Thank you for a challenging and insightful semester.

The Dogmatic Team from left to right: Ashlyn Rose (me), Makenna Defaccio, Lindsay Beck, & Summer Yim