• by Steve Ellwanger , July 1, 2021

Pet-wellness brand Jinx is going to the dogs—literally.

The marketer of premium, natural-ingredient dog food and treats is following through on its trademarked Direct-To-Dog positioning with scented mini-billboards in Los Angeles and New York City to support new distribution at Target stores.

Located at canine eye level, they’re dubbed “barkboards.”

Jinx launched an online subscription business in January of 2020, but has held off on experiential marketing because of the pandemic, according to co-founder and CEO Terri Rockovich.

“Part of our go-to-market strategy was a series of direct-to-dog marketing stunts. We’ve just been keeping them in our back pocket and waiting to launch them once the world started to reopen and normalize,” Rockovich tells Marketing Daily.

Bearing the words “Freshen (P)up” or “Treat Yourself,” the barkboards are scented with “a non-toxic, amino-acid-based composition that encourages pups to sniff and engage with them.”

They’ve been dispersed in such high-traffic, dog-friendly locales as New York’s Central Park and Madison Square Park, and Echo Park and Silver Lake in Los Angeles.

Nine months after its launch, Jinx gained an online presence with health and wellness retailer Petco. Most recently, Bloomingdale’s and Target began to offer Jinx products online while Target is the brand’s first in-store distributor.

The barkboards carry the notations “Now at,” immediately followed by the Target bullseye logo.

“It doesn’t give a specific location, but it’s definitely implied that it’s available at a Target location near you,” Rockovich adds.

Jinx’s startup backers include actor Will Smith, rapper NAS and singer Halsey, and venture-capital firms with deep roots in the direct-to-consumer world. Those firms’ investments have included stakes in D2C startups Harry’s, Peloton and Warby Parker.

If the pandemic provided a silver lining of sorts for Jinx and major competitors like Blue Buffalo, it’s an increase in the number of homebound pet owners.

Earlier this week, Jeff Harmening, CEO of Blue Buffalo parent General Mills Inc., said 85% of new pets are in homes that already contained one pet.

“And so the amount of pet food that's going to be consumed over the next few years, we think, is going to be elevated—in addition to the fact that the fastest-growing part of pet continues to be the natural segment.”