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December 1, 2003 - Strategy Magazine
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Every dog has its day
High-end pet accessories are getting out of control as Fido becomes a surrogate kid

by Kristen Vinakmens
page 1

Think it's a luxury to buy a cashmere scarf at the first sign of winter's chill? How about a cashmere scarf for Fifi the chihuahua? Well, now there is a growing segment who would think nothing of buying that scarf, along with a Burberry dog collar to boot. Welcome to the world of pet pampering.

"It's the fastest-growing niche market," says Susan Howard Memory, president of JRS Amenities, a Richmond, B.C.-based company which provides customized products for the hospitality industry. The company recently created custom doggy spa kits for use in hotels and for sale at retail to capitalize on a trend that's seeing people travelling with their pets (see "Have dog, will travel," page 8).

And JRS isn't the only one: Big-name marketers like Caban and Holt Renfrew - which just added Princessfield, a Toronto-based line of fantasy dog clothing and tiaras to its high-end offerings - along with smaller boutique companies, are offering up more and varied pet-related products and services and promoting them via in-store events and PR, as well as through traditional advertising in niche magazines like Vancouver-based Modern Dog.

According to Stevens, Penn.-based Unity Marketing, Americans spent close to US$30 billion on pet-related products in 2002, which includes supplies, food and veterinary services. While the pet segment as a whole hasn't been tracked in Canada yet, according to ACNielsen, Canadians spent over $618 million on pet food alone in the 52 weeks ended Aug. 9, 2003 - a 7% increase over the same period last year. All told, a significant chunk of Americans (55%, according to Unity Marketing) and more than half of Canadians (53%, according to a May 2002 Leger Marketing poll) own one or more pets.

Suzanne Doyle-Ingram, director of operations for Modern Dog, 'the lifestyle magazine for urban dogs and their companions' (think wallpaper* meets Dog Fancy), has seen her magazine's sales increase by 230% since its 2001 launch. She attributes the pet pampering trend to empty nesters and couples who choose not to have children and are thus substituting a pet for a child. The magazine's demographics are telling: the majority of its readers are married females with an income of over $60,000.

"Particularly in urban centres, people are concerned with fashion, and this extends to dog guardians as well - they like to look good and they want their dogs to look good too," says Doyle-Ingram, who adds that she has seen a rise in high-end doggy boutiques and products in the last few months. "It's a growing trend - increasingly dogs are being treated as members of the family (and in many cases as surrogate children), rather than just pets."

Lifestyle chain Caban has been tapping into Canadians' love for pets with the launch of its dog department in early spring, and the product line just keeps expanding, according to Eric Berthold, VP of Toronto-based Caban. "Caban is a lifestyle brand, and pets are an increasingly integral part of our customers lives," says Berthold of the pet-related product launches.

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