Cats, Family, Internet and the Evolution of Communities
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2025 5:31 am
Yesterday a new member arrived to the family: Castelli. He is a 6-month-old kitten that was rescued from the street and that my daughter loved from the first minute. We quickly had to learn how to take care of him, so between advice from friends, recommendations from the vet, Google searches and spontaneous comments after posting his photo on Facebook, we bought him special food, toys, a place for him to sleep, litter, a box for him to “go to the bathroom”, etc.
Here I am now as a new consumer of pet supplies adding feline images to online communities .
But this was not always the case. Long before I became one of the 60% of Latin American households that spend part of their budget on pet care, I was also on the other side, trying to understand as a market researcher the purchasing habits of the 10% of households that feed their pets food specially made for them.
When I started my career in the late 90s, a pet food brand asked me to do a study for them. I remember that 4 focus groups were conducted , which, together with the collection of 400 face-to-face surveys, took 4 weeks of fieldwork. Another week was added to these to sort, process and analyze the data.
Taking into account the week that was used to prepare a report with PowerPoint graphics, the client had to wait around 7 weeks until he could access the results of the service he had contracted.
At that time, the digital revolution was still in its infancy: Google was beginning to compete with Altavista for the top spot for information searches. There were still no social networks or platforms for malta phone number online videos, and having a mobile phone or a digital camera was a luxury that few Latin Americans could afford. Thinking about using digital media to contact 400 pet owners and apply surveys to them was almost science fiction.
The arrival of online communities
Many things have changed since then. Massive access to the Internet, the creation of online communities, the popularization of smartphones and the intensive adoption of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram (among many others) have transformed the way consumers relate to each other, make purchases, create and produce information and interact with brands.
No one would be able to deny this digital revolution and many might believe that the market research industry has evolved at the same pace, but this is true only for a minority, since (according to ESOMAR figures) more than 70% of studies are carried out in the same way as almost three decades ago (it is estimated that almost 90% in Latin America).
Here I am now as a new consumer of pet supplies adding feline images to online communities .
But this was not always the case. Long before I became one of the 60% of Latin American households that spend part of their budget on pet care, I was also on the other side, trying to understand as a market researcher the purchasing habits of the 10% of households that feed their pets food specially made for them.
When I started my career in the late 90s, a pet food brand asked me to do a study for them. I remember that 4 focus groups were conducted , which, together with the collection of 400 face-to-face surveys, took 4 weeks of fieldwork. Another week was added to these to sort, process and analyze the data.
Taking into account the week that was used to prepare a report with PowerPoint graphics, the client had to wait around 7 weeks until he could access the results of the service he had contracted.
At that time, the digital revolution was still in its infancy: Google was beginning to compete with Altavista for the top spot for information searches. There were still no social networks or platforms for malta phone number online videos, and having a mobile phone or a digital camera was a luxury that few Latin Americans could afford. Thinking about using digital media to contact 400 pet owners and apply surveys to them was almost science fiction.
The arrival of online communities
Many things have changed since then. Massive access to the Internet, the creation of online communities, the popularization of smartphones and the intensive adoption of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram (among many others) have transformed the way consumers relate to each other, make purchases, create and produce information and interact with brands.
No one would be able to deny this digital revolution and many might believe that the market research industry has evolved at the same pace, but this is true only for a minority, since (according to ESOMAR figures) more than 70% of studies are carried out in the same way as almost three decades ago (it is estimated that almost 90% in Latin America).