"TRAVELS WITH FIDO AND FLUFFY"
Did you take Rover out for Hallowe’en this year?
You read me correctly…I said Rover…or Fido…or Fluffy..or even little Boots. Pet costumes were the hottest rage this year. Not only were the kids in the family taking their doggie out with them on their quest for candy, but millions of adults dressed up their pets and took them to Pet Hallowe’en parties too. PetSmart, Target, PetValu, Petco were selling costumes like candy apples; and even Wal-Mart started selling pet costumes for the first time. This since PetSmart began selling pet costumes a decade ago. The older folks who no longer have the kids at home have adopted new ‘canine and feline kids’, and young married couples are taking on pets before starting their own families. With these two-income families, pets are being lavished with lots of goodies. The result is astronomic growth in the pet industry. This industry includes the cost to acquire animals themselves, the feeding, medical c are, pet sitting, training, grooming, and sale of dozens of different kinds of toys, cages, collars, blankets and pet poop pick-up bags.
This isn’t just cats and dogs. It includes other pets such as: ferrets, guinea pigs, pot-bellied pigs, mice, rats, parrots, canaries, snakes, lizards, fish, and likely another dozen or so kinds of animals that people adopt and keep at home.
The pet industry is booming like never before. It has grown by double in the last decade to $34.3 billion, as estimated by the American Pet Product Manufacturers Association. This market growth brings up an interesting question for any company that offers products/services to pets and their owners. How do they take advantage of this ever-increasing market opportunity?
Let’s look at an example from our own hospitality industry, and examine the lodging sector. What do you think is the fastest growing segment in this market these days? You guessed it. It’s the “pet-friendly” hotel, motel, resort or inn. Lodging operators have realized that millions of these same pet owners want to travel with their pet. In fact some research has shown that if these particular guests are able to take their pet with them and the pet stays in the same room, these customers have a greater likelihood of staying longer and consequently spending more money while they’re in that property. We have at least a dozen pet-friendly directories on the web, comprised of lodging establishments that welcome guests with pets.
If you’re planning your trip, simply go to these web-based pet-friendly directories and determine which hotels or inns on your route or at your intended destination accept pets with the guest in the room. In some cases, you can even book your lodging reservation while on that pet-friendly web site. The lodging establishments pay the directory to be listed positively in their online guide, because they know that this is a fast growing special niche of potential house guests that are very valuable to the hotel in terms of the bottom line. Just like properties discovered in the past, that more families would stay with them if the kids were accepted free in the same room, the same is now occurring with people who have pets. In many cases, the pets are just like kids. (83% of pet owners refer to themselves as their pets’ “Mom” or “Dad”. Additionally, 52% are better at remembering the name of their neighb or’s pet than the neighbor. Source: Pet owners survey, 2001, AAHA, American Animal Hospital Association).
Let’s assume that it’s obvious that this pet-friendly lodging market segment is huge. Additionally, let’s continue examining lodging as a good example of what a marketer can do in any industry segment where he/she spots rapid growth. What’s the first thing you’ll do when closely watching this market segment? You’ll immediately delve into what other specific opportunities are available within this niche. If we consider the general lodging market as the bigger, general market, and then the guests with pets to be a sub-set or niche within the larger general lodging segment, then we can now scrutinize the dynamics of this smaller niche within a niche. If you sit down with a cold one and think through just how this smaller, specialized market niche might work, you can stumble on to some very interesting potential opportunities. This is exactly what some folks did who have no experience in the lodging industry whatso ever. They just used some common sense and looked closely at this lodging segment and determined that there was a real need for a utility product that would combine the benefits they were already providing in other forms, to the burgeoning guests with pets’ niche. |
Here’s what they did. Getting as basic as I can here—to make my point—one thing we know for sure is that dogs and cats, like us, have to eat and they have to…well you get the picture. The question raises itself: how does a lodging owner manage this potential mountain of pet poop?
The answer rises to the appropriate occasion: you invent a very special plastic totally biodegradable doggie bag…one that conveniently assists the pet owner in picking up after his pet and allowing him to dispose of this material in such a manner that the plastic bag totally degrades into nothing but CO2, water and humic matter, when it is put in the landfill or the composting containers.
The folks at www.ecosafeplastics.com originally began marketing plastic biodegradable trash bags as well as bags for carrying home the groceries from the supermarket. They added other items, then zeroed in on their newest item: the biodegradable plastic doggie bag. Their Ecosafe® Biodegradable Doggie Bag is less expensive than other plastic competitors. It does not add to the garbage and landfill problem. Furthermore, it can be overprinted, so it’s easy to “brand” the bag, positioning this innovative little product as the proprietary brain-child of that particular resort or chain of inns. Branding and printing allows each chain of properties to convey its own corporate or regional message to its special niche of pet-lover guests. For non-chain or independent properties, it allows them to take advantage of the EcoSafe® ‘generic’ doggie bag, or they can have their own printed for their own use. It tells those guests that the hotel owners love pets too; and really value their business. This little green bag also gives degradable plastics the chance to tell a bit about their product and to direct the user to their main web site for more detailed information.
From a marketing point of view, this is an incisive product and service that serves a ‘niche within a niche’. First, it is designed for those lodging establishments that welcome guests with pets. Next, within that niche, it is specifically designed to assist the hotel with a very nasty problem. Moreover, it helps position the hotel as being an environmentally friendly or ‘green’ property; one that also looks out for its other guests (especially those without pets), while, at the same time, it persuasively demonstrates to that smaller niche of guests—those with pets—that it really does love pets as much as its guests, and will do everything it can to make them safe and comfortable during their stay. The hotel counts on these very satisfied guests to tell other pet owners about the special and considerate treatment they received at this particular property.
When a guest with a pet checks into a pet-friendly property, and the front desk clerk unexpectedly offers him a couple of EcoSafe® Biodegradable Doggie Bags with a quick explanation and/or brochure for his pet, what do you think the pet-owner will think? Offering one or two free EcoSafe® free samples for their stay and having more on hand if needed, is just another way of underscoring the hotel’s acceptance of pets. Happy pet owners spread the word amongst others; and in the long run, the hotel acquires more profitable business for its own bottom line.
On the operations side of the business, how about the reduced labor cost and hassle of waste removal, unsightly and evil-smelling left-behinds on the hotel grounds landscaping, the attraction of vermin and rodents; or even possible hazards to health? Those problems and costs are now mostly gone. Additionally, when the hotel guests see that the hotel is concerned about the environment and is carefully handling such waste, it sends another positive message to these same guests—including those without pets—that this hotel is really professional and caring for the safety and comfort of all guests.
These are marketers who looked at a burgeoning market niche within another larger niche. Then they created a product that’s hard to match. This is the very essence of great marketing. Find a need, or a gap in the market…then fill it…and be the first one to do so, since first in is always best. Let me leave you with one very important final ‘marketing thought’: which doggie bag do you think you would now buy and use for your pet when at home…once you’ve experienced the existence and benefits of the EcoSafe® Biodegradable. |
