Bryan Miller’s recent blog alerted me to Talking Pets, a site run by the Blue Cross (see profile) where you can upload pictures of your pets (or use the one provided), quite literally put words into their mouths and email the message to your friends.

It’s a brilliantly mad idea, and that’s the point. Had it been any less eccentric – if Dave the kitten hadn’t been wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses - I wouldn’t have bothered sending it round the office. I certainly wouldn’t have written a blog about it. 

As Bryan makes clear, it’s all about viral marketing.  Bryan believes Talking Pets’ appeal is “a combination of surprise, fun, and an extremely high level of personalization”.  This he hopes will make for an effective campaign.

There’s certainly plenty of links pushing you towards the Blue Cross’ social networking site, All About Pets.  But what I find odd is how little there is of the Blue Cross on TalkingPets.org.

Not directly linking the talking pets currently flooding inboxes to the charity behind the campaign (and its donations page) strikes me as a lost opportunity.

But have I just missed the point?

 

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