The "counterattack" of cats and dogs, can these cute pets that have gone viral make money?

The cute pet track is still hot on video platforms and has gradually become one of the most popular video content for young people. So what are the innovations in style in such a hot track? How to seize the ever-changing market opportunities? Let's read it together!

Nowadays, young people seem to suffer from "pet addiction". The pet content track of major platforms has developed rapidly and has gradually become one of the most popular vertical categories among young people.

With the upgrading of young people's demand for pet keeping, from pet health to fashion, pet marketing has also become a popular way for brands in multiple fields to penetrate the circles of young people, feeding back the rapid development of cute pet content.

However, with the increase in cute pet bloggers, cute pet content has become somewhat homogeneous, making it increasingly difficult for cute pet bloggers to break out of the circle, and monetization also faces huge challenges.

Recently, Clour has observed that many "newcomer" cute pet bloggers have emerged on short video platforms, and many innovative content forms and styles have emerged. What are the development opportunities and challenges of pet content? How can brands leverage pet content to convey their brand concepts?

1. New bloggers emerge, and styles are innovated under the original form

Today's pet content is more oriented towards contrast, humor and professionalism.

@嘻哈不拆 is a creator on Douyin who records the daily life of cute pets. Three dogs of different breeds and personalities have their own characteristics, attracting the attention of 1.96 million fans. In particular, a husky named "不拆" almost only sticks to its "father" in the video, and ignores the care of its "mother", so it is nicknamed "daddy dog" by fans.

This method of attributing human personality traits to cute pets is the mainstream of current pet content. When human characteristics, specialties, and personality appear on pets, it will bring a certain sense of contrast to users, making them feel novel and happy.

For example, in the video of "Little French Bulldog Ball", the bulldog that can skateboard is cute and funny. After all, no one would have thought that a bulldog could easily control a skateboard. Another example is the Douyin account "Entangled Brothers", which has nearly 9 million fans. With its humorous plot and clever camera movements, it has won the love of a large number of fans with two cats that can sing magical rap.

@是曼玉不是鱼 is a new cute pet UP host on Bilibili. In his videos, a black Shiba Inu interacts with the creator like a "human". When receiving a massage, it shows an expression of enjoyment, and when wearing a beautiful skirt, it also smiles at the camera... From April to now, @是曼玉不是鱼 has gained the love of more than 600,000 fans and has become a "dark horse" in the cute pet track of Bilibili.

It is not difficult to find that most of these videos are recorded by pet bloggers who casually record the happy time they spend with their cute pets in daily life. They present the daily life of cute pets in a relaxed and cheerful tone, and attract users' attention with the "special skills" and funny characteristics shown by cute pets in life.

In addition to content that is more life-oriented and entertaining, knowledge explanations and popular science provided by some pet experts, doctors, and pet raising experts have also become an important direction of current pet content.

Compared with other types of videos, this type of video has quite high requirements for the professionalism of the blogger, and the entry threshold is relatively high. For example, the famous pet behavior researcher "Miss Spring" mostly publishes one-person voice-over videos, which mainly analyze pet behavior and explain the reasons for some special behaviors of pets in a relaxed and humorous way, including why cats always bite you and several signals when cats are angry, etc., to help people better understand their cute pets.

The popularity of such videos is inseparable from the increase in the number of "pet owners" and the change in pet-raising habits.

According to the report "Observation on Lifestyle Consumption of Young People - Adoration of Cute Pets" by Clour, the demand of young people for pets is constantly upgrading. The demand for healthy feeding, hands-free, efficient cleaning, intelligent monitoring, and remote companionship drives the development of pet products in the direction of intelligence. In the process of updating and iterating concepts, new equipment and new knowledge need to be understood and learned, which provides space for the development of popular science content on pet raising.

Clour found that most of the short videos on testing and popular science are accompanied by clear data charts, practical case illustrations and lively and interesting explanations, and the information density of the videos is often very high. At the same time, lively and interesting explanations can make some abstract and highly professional pet disease knowledge no longer so obscure, so that every ordinary pet owner can easily and accurately master this knowledge.

Overall, pet content has gradually shifted from cuteness and healing to contrast and professionalism. Although the form is still life record and popular science, the content style is more prominent and clear.

2. “Consolation of Content” Brought by Sensualization of Images

"You have no love, you need companionship, get a dog!" Ma Weiwei's words in the debate reveal the important reasons for the popularity of pet content and pet economy. "Loneliness" has become the synonym of young people today. More and more young people leave their hometowns to work hard in foreign lands alone. The number of single "empty nest youth" is increasing day by day, and more people hope to entrust the emotional companionship they need to pets.

The 2022 China Pet Industry Trend Insight White Paper shows that among the 125 million households living alone in China, the pet ownership rate is 16%, and among the 150 million middle- and high-income elderly people, the pet ownership rate is 7%. This proves that many people who love pets do not have the conditions to experience the fun of raising pets in person due to factors such as time and money.

Through pet content, "cloud cat petting" and "cloud dog raising" have become their main channels for releasing their emotional needs, which has also boosted the development of pet content.

From the perspective of creators, they themselves are also part of the army of pet owners. Users upload and share their interactive videos with their pets on social platforms, and in the process they can gain more love and attention from others. This is also an emotional recognition for the creators themselves, and they can even get real rewards such as advertising revenue through their popularity. Why not do it?

Whether users or creators, they can participate in the life of their pets through interactive methods such as creation, likes, and comments, and gain a strong sense of self-worth from it. This is also an important reason why pet content maintains long-term vitality.

In addition to companionship and comfort, today's pet content has spawned some new niche branches, and the sensory experience has changed from warmth and cuteness to stronger impact and curiosity.

For example, the B station up master @天青色等_烟雨 is a creator who focuses on exotic pets. A pet crocodile he raises can even wear a maid outfit and make cute noises. The highest number of views for a single video has exceeded 6 million; @王小怪 is a creator who focuses on raising marine life. Gradually, he has also derived niche animals such as lizards and guinea pigs. With humorous dubbing and novel species, he has accumulated 10 million fans.

Young people today are independent and like to try new things. Various exotic pets can give them the pleasure of sensory impact, thereby relieving the pressure brought by work and life. At the same time, exotic pets have become a social currency among young people, which can not only help them quickly find "like-minded people", but also express their own uniqueness through sharing.

Whether it is to soothe the soul or shock the senses, today's pet content has begun to diversify, providing users with sensory satisfaction and enjoyment. However, diverse content has not opened up diverse monetization paths, and the commercialization of pet experts still faces great challenges.

3. Pet bloggers have difficulty finding a way out amid commercial difficulties

For today’s pet bloggers, the main way to monetize is still through advertising.

Take @嘻哈不拆 mentioned above as an example. Most of the advertising promotions received by the creator were related to pet food, toiletries and other products, and almost no other categories appeared. @王小怪 received some promotions for household products and game apps with his humorous language style, but due to the large differences between the audience groups, the actual conversion effect was not ideal.

In the face of unsatisfactory advertising revenue, many pet bloggers have begun opening stores to sell pet food, supplies, toys and other products, using e-commerce to solve the problem of unstable monetization of advertising placements, and even started their own live streaming to sell goods.

Opening the window of @嘻哈不拆's homepage, we can see many pet snacks made by the blogger himself on sale, as well as many other brands of products on sale. According to the heat wave data, @嘻哈不删 has broadcast three times in the past week, with an average peak popularity of only about 3,490 people per broadcast, and the cumulative live broadcast sales are only 86,000, which is not ideal.

As pet blogger Li Maoni said in an interview: "Only the top pet bloggers make a lot of money, most bloggers do not make money. Sometimes the income cannot even cover the costs." This sentence reveals the difficulties faced by pet bloggers today, especially for mid-level influencers. Finding new monetization points is a top priority.

Claure believes that it is not just the material needs of pet owners that deserve attention; some spiritual and service-level business avenues may also bring new opportunities for pet experts.

According to Clour’s survey data, 58.3% of pet owners believe that they do not know enough about pet healthcare, and even 15.9% of them pay attention to the popularization of pet knowledge and psychological counseling. Pet training, pet foster care, and virtual pets are all important parts of the pet economy. There is still a lot of room for exploration in localized consumption such as beauty, photography, and health services.

In the final analysis, the entry of a large number of creators has made the "involution" of the pet vertical category more intense. Pet bloggers are trapped in a single way of monetization and face the constraints of commercialization. However, the changes in the pet market have never stopped, and new consumption methods are constantly emerging. Whoever can seize the rapidly changing market opportunities will stand out from the competition.

4. Final Thoughts

In people's lives, pets have become family members, and users' spiritual needs have become the driving force for the development of the pet economy. Some innovative pet content continues to emerge, occupying a place on short video platforms and injecting new vitality into the industry.

However, the challenge of commercialization still lies ahead. If creators want to reap the benefits of pet content, they need to constantly adapt to user needs and changes in the pet market, try more different monetization methods, and seize new commercial opportunities brought by the pet economy market.

Author: Dake

Source: WeChat Official Account: TopKlout