The phrase, “this country has gone to the dogs,” has taken on a new meaning in the age of “dog pawrents” and “furbabies.” People want the best for their dog-children and as a result, multiple new dog food companies are coming onto the market offering fresher ingredients and better flavors while existing companies revamp their brands in an attempt to cater to this growing audience.
To better understand the dog food space, we ran a study with over 400 US dog owners to evaluate the current dog food market and provide insights for Pet Care brands to optimize their product offerings. Included in this study, we ran a Choice-Based Conjoint Analysis (CBC) to determine how dog food purchases are influenced by price, package size, health benefits, flavors, ingredient claims, and brand.
Looking at the brand funnel we see that Blue Buffalo, Purina, Pedigree, and Iams are the top four brands in the dog food space, accounting for 66% of main brand usage. Blue Buffalo is the most popular, noted as the most preferred brand among 49% of dog owners with a purchase likelihood of 35%. Purina ranks second with a purchase likelihood of 27%, while Pedigree and Iams follow 3rd and 4th respectively, with a 10% and 6% purchase likelihood in the market scenario.
If you were to remove Blue Buffalo from the marketplace, 33% of dog owners would switch their purchase to IAMS, 32% would switch to Pedigree, and 20% would switch to Purina. However, most interesting is that 15% of consumers would not choose to purchase any of the alternatives if Blue Buffalo was not available.
When looking at the importance of product attributes, dog owners most strongly attribute their purchasing decisions to price and brand. The price of the dog food (30%) is ranked first, followed by brand (23%) and then package size (17%). Ingredient claims and flavors are the least important - accounting for only 18% combined.
The data above is related to the total group of respondents, where price is more important than brand. However, we see a different story when cutting the sample by income level. Once a consumer's household income exceeds $100,000 per year, the brand (37%) becomes increasingly more important to influence purchase rather than the price (15%).
In today's Pet Care market, brands need to understand their consumers preferences and needs to keep a leg up in our dog-eat-dog world. Learn more by downloading the full Insights Dashboard below.