In recent years, dogs have been promoted from man’s best friend to their owner’s non-biological child. Many have adopted this mentality, and with it, there has been a change in the way that dogs are taken care of.
To learn more about the modern dog owner we ran a Choice-Based Conjoint Analysis (CBC) with 400 US dog owners to measure preferences, importance, and willingness to pay for products and services. Our participants for the study included dog owners, ages 18+, who are decision-makers in the category. The majority of dog owners (63%) own just one dog, while 29% own two, and 9% own three or more.
According to the behavior statements of dog owners, the vast majority care a great deal about their dog. Seventy-three percent of dog owners said that they pamper their dog while 87% of them feed their dog high quality ingredients. This serves as no surprise given that 80% of dog owners agree that they treat their dog as their child and the 42% who would rather have a dog instead of taking the traditional parenthood route.
Beyond the quality of food, we also learned that dry food is the most preferred type of dog food, purchased by 80% of consumers. Compare this to wet food at 10%, semi-moist food and home cooked food both at 4%, and raw food at just 2%.
We also compared different types of stores (traditional, specialty, online retailers, club stores, online, and other) to see where people are actually buying their dog food from. While it might seem like online retailers, such as Amazon, have taken over the shopping world, the online shopping platform only ranked third (33%), behind Pet Stores (43%) and Traditional Stores (55%) i.e. Walmart or Target as the main place that consumers purchase their dog food.
Through the brand funnel we saw that Blue Buffalo, IAMS, Purina, and Pedigree have over 80% brand awareness, and that 66% of dog owners use these brands.
Access the rest of the study for a deep dive into Blue Buffalo, IAMS, Purina, and Pedigree including their specific attributes and how brands can increase their choice share among key segments.
Key insights include the most preferred brand, which attributes dog owners are most and least driven by, and purchase likelihoods in specific market scenarios.
*Image credit: https://puppyhero.com/breed/jack-russell-terrier /unsplash.com
