February 20th is National Love Your Pet Day. When it comes to pets, the licensing industry is standing at attention with licensed pet products for our furry friends.
While we love our pets every day, on February 20th, it’s encouraged to show it by paying extra attention and pampering our furry family members.
The pet industry continues its explosive growth. According to the latest American Pet Products Association (APPA) survey, 70% of U.S. households own a pet, which equates to 90.5 million homes.
When the survey was first taken in 1988 only 56% of households owned a pet. Of the 90.5 million homes that have pets, 69 million have a dog, and 45 million own a cat.
The percentage of pet ownership is pretty similar across all generations with Millennials being the most likely to own a pet (32%).
Millennials have a uniquely strong bond with their four-legged friends, according to a 2018 TD Ameritrade study – “68 percent would take leave to care for a new pet if their employer provided it to them.”
In addition to more households having pets, owners are spending more on their fur babies. In 2020, $103.6 billion was spent on pets. That’s up from $97.1 billion in 2019.
Sharing their favorite brands with their beloved pets, pet owners are willing to pay more for popular brands like sports teams.
Sally Adams Trufant, who co-owns Mobile, Alabama-based B&B Pet Stop shared that the area’s fanhood of the University of Alabama drives sales.
“Alabama football fans are fierce and don’t seem to mind paying extra for official, licensed collars,” she said. “We also carry other football teams and they sell, but not nearly as well as the University of Alabama.”
The NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, and MLS all sell pet gear on their official webstores.
Major brands like Cartoon Network’s Rick & Morty teamed with SilverPaw for cat toys while Glossier teamed with BarkBox for chew toys.
BarkBox’s subscription service has 1.8 million active subscribers and has licensing agreements with many brands like Warner Bros. Scooby-Doo, WildBrain’s Peanuts, Sesame Street, and even Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser…or should we say “Barkweiser.”
Fetch for Pets is the industry-leading manufacturer to bring lifestyle and entertainment brands for the fur members of the family.
During the first few months of the pandemic, a lot of pet shelters were getting empty as more and more people were prone to adopt pets as part of their quarantined lives. That is when Fetch for Pets exploited the category of Wet Ones and saw an exceptional boom in sales as pet owners well embraced the product.
Steven Shweky, President of Fetch for Pets, discussed the trends he’s watching in a recent brand licensing podcast.
“There’s still definitely a focus on natural products and clean ingredients in a product. Whether it’s edible or topical, a sustainable product is still very important to the pet consumer. We’re seeing massive growth in preventative care products. Grooming is probably the biggest winner of the bunch. We’ve seen crazy escalation during the pandemic. While other categories are returning to normal, pet grooming is still 50% above last year.”
In addition to consumer products, collaborations are also becoming more popular.
Chewy, an online site for pet products, recently partnered with Trupanion, a medical insurance company for pets, to offer an exclusive suite of pet health insurance and wellness plans to more than 20 million Chewy customers.
Trade shows abound with the pet industry’s premier international trade show, the Global Pet Expo, taking place on March 23-25 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. This trade show will showcase 1,000 companies and over 3,000 products.
This February 20th, give your pet a little extra love and share your favorite licensed pet product with them.