Consumer Trends: Pet Products and How to Effectively Advertise to Pet Owners

The Attest Consumer Trends Reports are in-depth explorations of a predefined consumer group. Consumers who self-identify with the behaviours or demographic categories of this group are surveyed and asked about their market-specific views, and consumer habits more generally. 

The preferred brands, influencers and social media platforms, as well as their priorities when considering and making purchases are all interrogated in a consistent format within each Consumer Trends Report. 

This report includes: 

• Behaviours and interests of pet owners, specifically their sentiments towards pet brands
• Social media and shopping habits of this consumer group, both within the pet market and more widely
• Market and brand awareness
• Key takeaways for brands looking to target this unique segment of the market

Top 10 pet brands according to pet owners: 

1. Pedigree
2. Pets at Home
3. Whiskas
4. Felix
5. Purina
6. Kong
7. Iams
8. Bakers
9. Royal Canin
10. Dreamies

Key Findings: 

With a huge population of pets in the UK, each with (at least one) dedicated and loving owner, the pet product market can provide high levels of loyalty to the brands who crack the right formula.

While the non-brand-specific habits of pet owners don’t converge on significant differences that set this market apart from the rest of the population, there are certain brands successfully capturing the attention of great swathes of this varied group. There are also some behaviours that unite them.

They’re digitally-savvy, with almost half (44.3%) turning to Google or Amazon as their first resort when making decisions about pet products. Continuing this trend they also voted social media (22.5%) and websites (16.6%) as the second and third places they most like to see adverts, behind TV with 35.1% of the vote.

Quality and durability is their first priority when shopping for their pet, while they’re not particularly concerned with convenience of use or buying, so they’re willing to go out of their way to buy the right products.

Pedigree lead the market as providing both the best advertising campaigns, and being the overall favourite pet brand. While Paul O Grady would be pet owners favourite influencer for these products.

They also self identify as being loyal to their favourite brands. It seems that once they’ve found a high quality, durable product, pet owners aren’t likely to shop around for alternatives.

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