It wasn’t by accident that “Scout” became the friendly face of Balihoo, sniffing and scratching out the most relevant media for your search. Balihoo is “advertising’s best friend” after all. However we’ve since discovered that a common trait amongst many Balihooers is a weakness for four legged friends.

In fact, the Balihoo family has no less than 15 dogs and if you visit our office you’ll notice that their pictures are up on the walls as well. Our pets are often the topic of conversation in the break room but we all know that many animals aren’t as lucky to have found such loving owners.

That’s why for the past few months Balihoo has been volunteering with the Idaho Humane Society in conducting Boise’s KBCI-Channel 2 ‘Pet of the Week’ segment. Many of you are probably familiar with the Humane Society, the country’s most powerful animal protection organization whose work has saved lives of countless animals. The Idaho Humane Society is the largest and oldest animal welfare organization in the state of Idaho and typically handles 15,000 animals a year.

Here at Balihoo we believe in the mission of the Idaho Humane Society which is to “advocate the welfare and responsible care of animals, protect them from neglect and cruelty, and promote humane awareness and compassion” and that’s why we’ve decided to volunteer our time to their cause. So far we’ve been able to help numerous dogs (Buster, Ike, Lucky, Crawdad…) find homes and have been told that the exposure from the Pet of the Week airings help increase adoption rates for days. You can actually view a few Balihooers in action on Boise’s CBS-Channel 2 by clicking the following links:

 

http://www.2news.tv/younews/7675342.html

http://www.2news.tv/younews/7892117.html

.

If you are you looking to adopt a pet, the Humane Society is an excellent option. My dog Emma, a loving Drahthaar/Labrador mix, was once a stray that was rescued by the Idaho Humane Society. She is a born retriever; yet hadn’t set a paw in the water or the foothills before she came to live with me. Now, she races up the hills and loves nothing more than splashing and swimming through the river. I will be forever grateful to the Humane Society for their diligent work in rescuing such wonderful animals. For more information on the Idaho Humane Society visit http://www.idahohumanesociety.com.

We were thrilled to wake up this morning and find Balihoo profiled in Advertising Age:  http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=119680 

Of course, we’ve been working with them for awhile on the article, but it’s so nice to finally see it live (as well as in print…we made the print edition!)  Of course, there are some things that I wish were slightly different about the article, so I thought this would be a great place to call those out:

• I wish they had been more clear that Balihoo functions across ALL mediums.   Our potential customers are often mistaken that our search engine only works for online properties when in fact we cover everything from TV to radio to events to billboards PLUS all of the online opportunties.
• I would have liked them to get in some more detail regarding the product (because of space constraints they couldn’t).  Although “search” is our key feature, I believe the ability to save media properties into accounts and campaigns, plus the ability to connect directly with media owners and other media buyers are also very important.  Additionally, the social-networking aspects of the application that allow you to rate, tag and profile properties are revolutionary in the industry.  Here’s hoping they’ll cover these in more detail in the next article! 
• Again, space constraints limited their ability to talk to customers, they were only able to speak with a single beta user.  However, Carat USA has been a fantastic beta user, and Lynne Langlois there has been great, so they were the perfect customer to interview.  It would have been nice to get comments from 3 or 4 other customers as well though since we’re getting some very positive feedback from our other Beta users. 
• Finally, I simply wish they would have invited their readers to sign up to be in our Beta program.  It’s been great working with all of the Beta customers and this would have been a perfect opportunity to get the word out about the beta to a very targeted group. 

Of course…all of that being said…I think the article was great and appreciate the visibility!  Thanks Ad Age!�