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David Austin
The Cat House
For some of us dentists that have been in practice
for more years than we would like to admit,
dental marketing is not an easy subject or task. In
fact, marketing in general, long an American staple
for the promotion of any product, can become a cateat-dog
world. Sometimes even the best of marketing
intentions can sometimes go astray.
My first foray into marketing was at
the age of nine, when my friend Trip
and I decided there were too many
cats walking around our neighborhood
unattended. We decided that we could
gather as many cats as we could find and
sell them for soda and candy money.
There was an old metal shed in my
backyard that contained yard equipment
and would make the perfect place to
house them.
Within our first weekend we had
gathered over 20 of the meanest feline
critters and locked them inside that metal
shed. They were not happy.
Trip had an old mimeograph machine his dad
had given him, so we made up several hundred
fliers that said: Have A Cute Kitty, $5, Call The Cat
House, After 3 p.m., and I included my home phone
number.
It was my idea to call that old shed the Cat House,
and I was kinda proud of that bit of marketing. We
gave the fliers to the city bus driver that stopped at
the corner and he promised to pass them out along
his route.
I made the wise decision to not tell my parents
about this business adventure because, you know,
parents don’t always understand us kids and would
probably try to discourage us anyway. Besides I knew
I would get home after school in time to answer the
phone so no need to bother them.
I was shocked that first Monday that no one called
wanting any cats. I went to bed around 9 that night
worried that I had already spent most of my yardmowing
money on cat food. Maybe the bus driver
forgot to give out those fliers.
My worries turned into fear when the phone
began to ring at 11:30 that night and didn’t stop
until nearly 5 a.m. My Dad was plenty mad and I
could hear him yelling over the phone
throughout the night. I thought it was
probably not a good time to tell him
about the cats in the garden shed.
That morning while eating
breakfast before school, my Dad
looked really tired and asked me if I
had anything to do with all the phone
calls during the night. I must have
looked guilty so I showed him one
of the fliers. I will never forget what
happened next, he began to laugh
and my Mom began to cry. My Dad
went on to tell me that perhaps my
flier had been misunderstood.
We went to the garden shed right then and there,
and let all of the cats go. Two of them decided to
have kittens while they were incarcerated. We kept
them and gave them away when they were older.
For several weeks, my Dad would leave the phone
off the hook when they went to bed, and finally, the
phone calls stopped.
I learned a valuable lesson about marketing at
an early age. A really good and effective marketing
campaign can make people laugh or cry. I had
achieved both.
A bad marketing campaign can create confusion
and customers can become angry when they realize
the product is not as advertised. I think I was
successful at that, too.
Funny though, to this day you can usually see a
stray cat hanging around where the old Cat House
used to be. Come to think of it, I guess cats don’t
understand marketing at all.
44 LDA Journal
HD69