Beggin' Strips

Beggin' Strips are a brand of dog treats manufactured and sold in North America by Nestlé Purina PetCare division. Beggin' Strips are designed to resemble strips of bacon.[1]

History

Beggin' Strips were first sold in 1993. Nestlé Purina started off by selling this product in North America.[2] It is marketed as being "more healthy than table scraps." This is supported by Nestlé Purina PetCare, who offers various coupons and other savings for Beggin' Strips.[3]

Nutrition

Purina Beggin' Strips are made of real bacon but are enhanced with artificial ingredients. According to Purina's Beggin' Strip website the initial bacon is preserved with sodium nitrite and BHA.[4] Base ingredients for additional additives include ground wheat, corn gluten meal, wheat flour, ground yellow corn, water, sugar, glycerin, soybean meal, hydrogenated starch hydrolysate, meat phosphoric acid, sorbic acid, natural and artificial smoke flavors. Depending on the flavor, artificial coloring is also added. There are six flavors currently available.

Purina products are made in the United States; however, they buy some of the ingredients from other countries with the biggest supplier being China. This data comes directly from Purina as stated on their Facebook page.

Marketing

Beggin' Strips are mostly famous for their television advertising, beginning in 1994, after they began selling their product in 1993. Shown from a dog's perspective, the excited pet smells Beggin' Strips and is convinced that he is smelling real bacon, exclaiming, "It's BACON!" The voice of the dog was provided by Bill Tullis. More recently, a new commercial was written and voiced by New York comedian Alex Bloom. The product's catchphrase is "It's no time like Beggin' time!"

The trademark bag for the product features a cartoon dog licking his chops while awaiting a treat. Drawn up in 1994, the dog was named "Hamlet." Hamlet was chosen to appear in Nestlé Purina's advertising for Beggin' Strips, and to represent the product.[5]

Shortly after the initial sale of Beggin' Strips, coupons for the product were released to try to build support for the treats.

Purina also hosts an annual Pet Parade around the time of Mardi Gras. It is held every year in Soulard, a historic French neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri with over 5,000 pets and their owners in attendance.[6] St. Louis' Waterloo Courier also covered the Beggin' Strips Stupid Dog Contest on July 4, 1999. This contest offers multiple monetary prizes, the grand prize being a $5,000 supply of Beggin' Strips per year and a trip to see the Late Show with David Letterman in New York.[7]

Beggin' Strips made its way into social media by launching a Facebook page [8] in 2011, and most recently in 2012, launching an iPhone and iPad application [9] allowing users to film their own version of the famous commercial.

References

  1. "Purina Beggin".
  2. "Beggin Strips History". Knol.
  3. "Pet Food Industry".
  4. "Beggin' Time". Archived from the original on 2012-03-29.
  5. "Pet Food Industry".
  6. March 2012 "Newspaper Archive" Check |url= value (help).
  7. March 2012 "Newspaper Archive (2)" Check |url= value (help).
  8. "Beggin' Facebook Page".
  9. "Apple iTunes Store - Beggin' Nosecam App".

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/29/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.