Maintaining Category Leadership

The Challenge

Understanding advocates’ changing needs and expectations in super-premium dry cat food.

With new trends and knowledge impacting how and what people feed their pets, our client wanted to better understand what were the core drivers and motivations for considering to switch to ancestral petfood – what offerings were resonating and what what driving consumers to try it.

 

The Approach

To understand the role the brand can play in addressing the emerging opportunity space of ancestral pet food, we undertook a deep dive with European cat and dog owners, keen to explore how it is defined, perceived and responded to.  We explored all the different elements, components and criteria they associate with the category along with their key considerations when contemplating a trial or switch.

We mapped their journeys with ancestral foods (beliefs, attitudes and behaviours, influences and influencers) and dove deep into their motivations behind exploring the category.  We explored their perceptions, considerations and experiences of existing brands within the ancestral landscape to identify opportunity spaces.

Finally, we mapped the drivers and motivations for owners of both species, getting a clear picture of the nuances between dog and cat and how the brand can leverage these nuances to drive product relevance.

 

The Impact

The Sound worked to inspire the brand’s innovation pipeline by exploring European cat and dog owner’s beliefs, attitudes and behaviours towards ancestral foods and their underlying motivations behind trialling and switching.