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Industry Insights: Pet Parenting and Premiumisation
Big business sinks its claws into pet parenting and premiumisation
The boom in pet ownership will likely be accompanied by a surge in consumption and innovation.
-Words Tim Calabria
AMONG MILLENNIAL pet owners it has become common to choose pets over parenthood. Across the internet, on social media pages with titles like ‘I like cats not kids’, memes abound, decrying the financial costs and time pressures of parenting human children. More broadly, social media pages with humanized pet themes have become increasingly mainstream in recent years. Doug the Pug 1 currently boasts 5.9 million TikTok followers, 5.7 million Facebook followers, 3.7 million Instagram followers and 2.6 million Twitter followers, while We Rate Dogs 2 and Thoughts of Dog 3 share more than 13 million Twitter followers combined.
Doug the Pug has millions of followers on social media.
The popularity of Doug the Pug and ‘I like cats not kids reflects a larger shift in our thinking about pets. In late 2020, the CEO presiding over the vitamin juggernaut, Swisse, stated that they wanted to make pet vitamins the ‘third pillar’ of the company’s revenue growth in coming years, after acquiring Solid GoldPet. Before the acquisition, Solid Gold Pet had delivered annual growth 4 of 39 per cent globally by selling premium vitamins and supplements for cats and dogs. These two instances – of household pets being granted celebrity status online, and of a CEO recognising the burgeoning pet vitamin market – are part of the same recent phenomenon. People’sperceptions of pets are changing more owners are recognising their pets as thinking and feeling individuals, and consumption trends are changing along with these perceptions.
– Tim Calabria
Some products that we used to solely associate with humans – such as anti-depressants, vitamins, and massages – are increasingly being marketed and sold for animals. Pet premiumisation, and the pandemic-related surge of pet acquisitions, have contributed to solid forecast revenue growth for Australia’s pet and pet product suppliers, with online providers projected to have even stronger growth than the overall industry.
Pet humanisation and the ‘fur baby boom’
The reasons behind the recent humanisation of pets are more complex than they may seem at first. People have spent more time at home with their pets since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has undoubtedly contributed to the humanisation of their animal companions. Yet, these changing normative relationships with pets were already underway before
the COVID-19 outbreak. In 2016, Forbes 5 published an article asserting that millennials had increasingly chosen pets over parenthood because children carry far greater financial and time burdens.
This trend has intensified in recent years – and so, too, have people’s reactions to it. In January 2022, even Pope Francis 6 weighed in on the issue, stating that dogs and cats have come to ‘take the place of children’ across much of the Western world, which constitutes ‘a form of selfishness’. Pet parenting has also firmly taken hold in some Asian countries, especially China 7 .
The reasons behind the recent humanisation of pets are more complex than they may seem at first.
In Australia, more than 60 per cent of millennials own pets 8 , with one Alice Springs resident penning a response to the Pope on behalf of this cohort. In defense of the ‘fur baby boom’, the author highlights the mental health benefits of pet ownership. Dog owners alone enjoy “a 24 per cent lower risk of all-cause mortality, a 65 per cent lower risk of death after a heart attack, and a 31 per cent lower risk of death from cardiovascular causes”, as well as lower incidences of anxiety and depression. Yet, millennials’ concerns over issues such as climate change and overpopulation have also contributed to fewer people opting to have children. The resulting decline in the fertility rate has coincided with greater uptake of pets in people of child-rearing age.
– Tim Calabria
Australian anthropologist Dr Shelly Volsche’s research indicates that pet owners are not simply imputing human traits onto their pets 9 . Dr Volsche argues that humanity evolved with a capacity to care for others’ young, and that this trait of ‘alloparenting’ has increasingly extended to caring for non-human species’ young.
Considering oneself a pet parent, therefore, does not mean mistaking an animal for a human child. Indeed, many owners take care to attend to the particular needs of their pets’ species – for example, by purchasing puzzle toys to assuage their cat’s or dog’s evolutionary impulse to forage for food. Nonetheless, this example shows that millennials are willing and able to spend more on meeting their pets’ mental health needs, including self-actualisation, which prior generations might have considered unnecessary outside of the human domain.
Pet product premiumization
IBISWorld’s 2022 report on the Pets and Pet Supplies Retailers 10 industry establishes that there is a growing trend of pet premiumisation, whereby owners are happy to pay more to ensure that their pets consume products that improve their health. According to this report, Australian “households are spending more money on [pets] in the form of… dietary supplements and vitamins”.
Swisse and Blackmores’ interest in targeting the burgeoning pet vitamin market in Australia speaks to this development. In January 2022, the Pet Industry Association of Australia (PIAA) stated that the pet industry was ‘COVID-19 proof 11 ’, citing pet vitamins and pet funerals as two lucrative – if not obscure – examples of this trend. The industry’s continued success would explain why external players have sought to enter the market in recent years to adjust for losses in other sectors.
Beyond fancy foods, supplements and funerals, other product sales opportunities have also emerged. Pet fashion brands have taken off in recent years. IBISWorld also observes that spending on ‘stress and anxiety treatments’ for pets has increased in line with this broader pet anthropomorphism trend.
Animal massage therapy has grown sharply in recent years in the United States. Although figures for Australia are more difficult to come by, animal massage therapy services and courses have become increasingly prevalent online. Pet anti-depressant products, likeAdaptil, have shared a similar trajectory.
Overall, more millennials than previous generationsare avoiding the financial costs of parenthood, electingto meet their own emotional and mental healthneeds through pet ownership instead. As a result,new markets have emerged across the pet industry inunexpected spaces, enabling pet parents to supporttheir companions through every stage of their lives –and beyond. Millennials’ willingness and capacity tospend on their pets have grown, which presents novelopportunities for industry operators. Accordingly, thefur baby boom will likely be accompanied by a surge inconsumption and innovation, and rising revenue in thisunique, and thriving, industry.
Sources: 1 https://twitter.com/itsdougthepug 2 https://twitter.com/dog_rates 3 https://twitter.com/dog_feelings 4 https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/pet-vitamins-a-newbattleground-in-blackmores-and-swisse-tussle-20201109-p56cq2 5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/erinlowry/2016/08/31/ why-are-so-many-millennials-opting-for-pets-notparenthood/?sh=701d9b723963 6 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59884801 7 https://qz.com/2115729/chinese-millennials-are-having-petsinstead-of-kids/ 8 https://www.marieclaire.com.au/fur-baby-boom 9 https://theconversation.com/new-research-suggests-cat-anddog-moms-and-dads-really-are-parenting-their-pets-heres-theevolutionary-explanation-why-169600 10 https://www.ibisworld.com/au/industry/pets-pet-suppliesretailers/5128/ 11 https://www.piaa.net.au/news/companies-targeting-dogvitamins-and-funerals-as-pet-industry-proves-its-covid-19-proof
