Doug Dohring is owner of the Dohring Company, a marketing research firm based in Glendale, California.
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Dohring formed The Dohring Company in 1986, with his wife serving as president. Customers for the company's market research services have included retail chains including Baskin-Robbins and House of Fabrics, and entertainment firms including Capitol Records. However, automotive surveys comprised up to 80% of the firm's business in 1995. At that time, the company was ranked 55th on the Advertising Age list of the nation's largest market research firms. It was 92nd on the Business Journal 's recent List of fastest growing private companies in Los Angeles County.[1]
In April, 2000, he brought in his first paying customers for a concept that he called immersive advertising.[2]
Two years after its creation, in December 2001, Neopets had attracted more than 20 million accounts, more than 80% of them under the age of 17. While the "tech bubble" was bursting and large percentages of new web sites were folding, Neopets was signing up 50,000 new accounts per day, with members spending an average of four hours or more per month on the site. Business Week cited Neopets as “one of the top three entertainment sites on the Web, according to Jupiter Media Metrix”.[3][4]
Advertising Age listed Dohring and Neopets in their 2001 “Roster of Marketing 100s”, noting that in July 2001 the site was ranked the “stickiest” at-home web site by Nielsen/Net Ratings.[5]
By 2002 Neopets had 24 million accounts, and people spending more time on the site than at major services such as America Online. It was cited by Stacey Herron at Jupiter Media Metrix as “one of the most usage-intensive sites on the Web.”[6][7]
Dohring sold the Neopets site to Viacom's MTV Network in June 2005 for $160 million. At the time, approximately 140 million Neopets had been created.[8][9]
Dohring was also a principal shareholder in Speedyclick.com circa 1999-2001, an organization linked with spamvertising.[10] He was quoted in a December 2005 Wired Magazine article as having "also invested in the Web-based game developer Speedyclick, which he later sold for $50 million."[11] ($3 million in cash and $47 million in ShopNow stock [1], later renamed as "Network Commerce",[12] deemed worthless in 2001.[12]
A 47-year-old California native, Dohring is the youngest son of a car dealer and a homemaker. He has been married to Laurie Dohring since 1979. They have five children including two sets of identical twins and Jason Dohring, notably known by acting in the series Veronica Mars and Moonlight.[1][11]
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