Pet marketing is taking over the pet industry!
Since the rise of social media influencers in 2006, more and more personalities have emerged to vie for their chance at starting a career as an influencer.
The most unexpected contender? Your pets!
Pet Parenting
COVID-19 lockdowns have led to a rise in pet ownership. Many find themselves with ample time at their disposal, and as such, has taken the opportunity to fill their time by pampering and raising furkids of their own. As such, the total pet revenue growth has grown to 63% since COVID-19 (commonthreadco, 2021)
The rise in pet ownership has also led to a demand for pet parenting. Many new pet owners scour the internet for useful insight and advice from pre-existing pet owners.
As such, pet influencers who utilise their platform to endorse pre-loved Brands or to provide tips into pet parenting are a hot spot for these new paw-rents. Many new paw-rents look up to these pet influencers and are likely to interact with their content in hopes of discovering more about their furkids.
Marketing for Brands?!
However, that’s not all!
Pet influencers are not limited to the pet industry alone hence the term pet marketing.
Under pet marketing, every day (non-pet related) Brands can utilise the demand for these cute and fluffy animals in their product releases or marketing campaigns.
Most notably, makeup brand Perfect Diary worked with Li Jiaqi and his ‘insta-famous’ dog Never to promote their palette collaborations with the Discovery Channel.
Their marketing tactic was a massive success– garnering 85,000 monthly sales for the palettes, 156,000 pre-sale orders and most importantly, a trending hashtag “Li Jiaqi Never Eyepalette” (JingDaily, 2020).
Their success owes to the Brand’s strategic and successful partnership with Never. Using the dog’s cute image garnered excitement over their eye palettes. Choosing to add a fluffy and cute twist to their promotional material was also an innovative way to engage the beauty industry– which is heavily populated with human models.
How can I Use Pet Marketing?
Working with Pet Marketing does require you to be strategic.
For example, Mercedes Benz worked with @loki, a pet influencer known for travelling the world with his owner. His love for travel and spontaneous road trip drives made Mercedes Benz a relevant Brand to collaborate with. Through these stories of travel, the efficiency of the vehicle is highlighted upon. As such, engaging via pet stories might be a beneficial way for you to partake in Pet Marketing.
However, you can also use Pet Marketing to boost the ethical image of your company. The Body Shop uses Pet Marketing to promote its company’s belief in non-animal tested products.
Additionally, you can also consider Dyson’s collaboration with pet influencers to promote their Dyson Cyclone V10 vacuums. They related to the pet owner struggle of having to clean up after your pet– such as the shedding of fur or ransacking of the house to showcase the Vacuum’s efficiency in cleaning up after such messes.
Regardless, there’s always a way for those brave enough to try.
Whether you are a Brand or a consumer, these cute animals are guaranteed to grip and entice your heart!