Produced | Tiger Sniff Commercial, Consumer and Mobile Group
The author | Miao Zhengqing
The title image | Visual China
"Cats are more reliable than men. It's too much trouble to be in love, some men are unreliable once they become objects, I've been in 6 relationships and am now single and have 4 cats. Lily, a girl born in 2000, told Tiger Sniff that she chose to spend Valentine's Day with cats this year.
On February 11, she bought a "love-shaped fish cake" and an electric cat toy specially made for cats in advance, and pre-ordered a bouquet of roses and a chocolate in the name of four cats - according to the plan, these Valentine's Day gifts in the name of "cats" will be delivered to Lily's residence on the evening of February 14, according to Lily, and according to Lily, there will even be a "love letter" written in the tone of a cat.
For young people born between 1995 and 2000, cats are becoming "key gentlemen" and "dream goddesses" in their emotional world. According to the "2021 China Pet Industry White Paper", the growth rate of pet cat "ownership" has continued to exceed that of pet dogs since 2019, becoming the fastest growing pet breed in China. In 2020, the total "ownership" of pet cats in high-tier cities has exceeded that of pet dogs, and in terms of the per capita pet cat "ownership", cats exceeded the data of dogs by 1.5 per person with 1.8 per person.
The post-95 generation has become a strong engine for the rise of "cat people". According to statistics, nearly 35% of the people who own cats are unmarried young people in high-tier cities who are single or living alone. According to cattosay's survey from 2019 to 2020, the single population born from 1995 to 1997 accounted for more than half of the new "first-time cat pet owners" in that year.
"The cat fever began to appear from 2014 to 2015, and cats gradually broke the circle from 2016 to 2017, and the number of cat owners has continued to rise in recent years." The logic behind this is the emergence of the age of solitude. Pidan founder Ma Wenfei told Tiger Sniff that the younger generation is facing an era of "universal material life improvement, easier to have a separate space and time alone, and high short-term romantic relationships", and cats have become excellent "companions" for young people to explore "how to accompany themselves".
Keen Capital also sees a strong correlation between the rise of Gen Z and the rise of cats. Lei Qianying, investment director of Qingtong Capital, told Tiger Sniff that in 2021, the growth rate of cat pet-related consumption is higher than that of young people in canine and high-tier cities, mainly due to factors such as emotional needs + feeding costs + time and space restrictions. "The needs of Generation Z are more diversified, pet consumption is closer to baby consumption, in addition to meeting the basic pet survival needs, but also to meet the needs of life and emotional needs, the industry category opportunities are increasing."
In the online world, the strong connection between Gen Z and cats is also changing the underlying logic of content and traffic.
On February 10, the owner of the B station cute pet UP, "Tuan Pet Yogurt Girl", told Tiger Sniff that she had taken her 5 cats to start preparing for the video content on Valentine's Day. "For many single friends, the cat is very much like a partner, and its emotional interaction with you comes and goes: one second the shoveler may hot face the cat cold ass, the next second the cat is running to you warmly. It's a lot like an interaction between couples. ”
In the name of the cat, the point and the union
The girl born in 1999, Yuanzi, broke up with her boyfriend because of a cat named Alex.
Just over a month ago, the two began to discuss marriage. The conflict was caused by the man's sudden offer that "he hopes that after living together, the cat can be sent away." The man even told Yuanzi that he did not like cats by nature, and he felt slightly uncomfortable seeing cats." ”
Yuanzi felt betrayed. She clearly remembers that when the man pursued himself in 2020, he had sworn to call himself a "cat slave" and painted a picture of the two living happily with the cat. Before the first stay, the man also specially bought a copy of the "World Cat Encyclopedia" published in the United Kingdom and gave it to Yuanzi in order to seek her heart.
For the post-95s, the pets at home have become the "love examiners" next to them. Tan Tan, chief psychological counselor and emotional expert of Lily Jiayuan Group, told Tiger Sniff that the social trend of the post-95 generation of young people is obvious, "They will have a clear definition of their own labels, such as I like cats, when looking for a love partner, they will go to find people with the same label." ”
One obvious change is that post-95s young people are redefining the relationship between domestic pets and people and families. Most post-95 pet owners tell Tiger Sniff that they are happy to eat with their pets, such as putting the cat's food bowl on one side of the table and the pet owner on the other side. "In an empty room, at this moment, you feel like you have a family to accompany you to dinner." One young pet owner said she even had to have a cat next to her when she fell asleep or she would feel uneasy.
Pidan founder Ma Wenfei shared his feelings: "A clear trend is that today's young people raise animals for themselves, they will not give up their beloved pets for the sake of so-called happiness and stability like the previous generation, they do not go along with it. ”
It is worth noting that cats are given more extra meanings in the role of "love examiner" than pet dogs, pet rabbits, aquatic tribes and hamsters.
Subculture researcher Wang Xiaoyan and his team have studied several mainstream pets that young people like, the special meaning of love, and they found that when pet cats are mentioned, the keywords that are more likely to appear are: home, bedding, foodie, home, fat, castration (and its deep hormonal implications) high cold, sticky. "From a cultural point of view, cats are very much in line with the underlying logic and ancestral vision of the family in Chinese bones."
A scholar who did not want to be named to study traditional culture and ancient legends told Tiger Sniff that the animals representing love in Chinese culture often change. "For example, in ancient times, foxes actually had love implications, but after the Tang Dynasty, the perception of foxes began to change qualitatively."
The scholar said the Song Dynasty was the first period of rise of the "influence of cat minds", when the image of cats began to become more positive and diverse. Some literati who were emotionally depressed began to devote themselves to the "cat circle" to rely on cats to soothe their feelings: Lu You, a great writer and hero, once gave a "dowry" to receive a cat in accordance with the customs of the Song Dynasty, and exchanged a bag of salt for a tanuki cat; Huang Tingjian, who wrote "a glass of wine in the spring wind of peach and plum, ten years of rain in the rivers and lakes", once wore small dried fish in his hand and hired a cat with a fish string. "This led to the rapid development of the pet economy in the Song Dynasty, when there were already pet grooming, pet food stores and other formats."
At the time of the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was the second period of the rise of the cat's mind. "In the Ming and Qing dynasties, because many emperors were cat lovers, among the scholars, raising cats became a trend, which further affected the cultural circle." As a result, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, not only did cat-related shops and stalls appear in some "first-tier cities", but also a number of "monographs" on cats and cats appeared in the publishing industry, which led to the emergence of "pet economy boom" and "cat culture boom" in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In the scholar's view, compared with the two "golden cycles of cats" in history, the popularity, cultural influence, and penetration of young people's love world of contemporary cats are at a high value for thousands of years.
Wang Xiaoyan and many other cultural researchers believe that the deep essence of the emergence of cat fever is that the characteristics of cats are very compatible with this generation of young people, and even like the "spokesmen" of the Z generation: like home, do not like social, have strong self-esteem, high cold and warm contradictions, lack of security, strong self-satisfaction...
"So in the spiritual world, cats have become one of the key love labels of this generation." You can evaluate the value of a person's marriage and love by whether they like cats and how they treat cats. ”
Hidden behind the cat fever is the relatively lower time cost and rearing cost of raising cats. Pidan founder Ma Wenfei said that compared with pet dogs, cats do not have to walk, for young people, more in line with their "home culture" and "online social" characteristics; and the cost of raising a single cat in the city is generally lower than that of raising a single pet dog, "Some pet owners, 300 yuan a month can also raise cats well." ”
These factors make cats "enter the house" and become the key chips that affect the direction of Gen Z love. Cats may become a "break-up factor", but they can also become a "lead".
Chen Hao, a boy born in 1997, described his love to Tiger Sniff: a love that was activated and fulfilled by cats. Because of his slightly fat and euphemistic appearance, he did not get "love favor" during his entire college years. After work, he raised his first cat "Fat Chuan", and during a dinner party with colleagues, an intern girl of the company saw the "Fat Chuan" photo of Chen Hao's mobile phone screensaver and became interested. The two began a hot conversation from a cat and eventually developed into a romantic relationship.
Another handsome man, by observing the attitude of "girls to cats", chose his wife - because he had completed the accumulation of wealth through the blockchain in his youth, he had been surrounded by no shortage of girls, and finally chose his wife because "when she came to the house, she treated the hairy, ugly old cat at home with a gentle look, gentle voice, and would personally squeeze and freeze dry a little patiently to feed it." She's not beautiful or smart, but she makes me feel excited. ”
It is worth noting that this "cat variation" hidden in the world of Gen Z love did not appear suddenly. In the online world, a powerful "cat traffic" has quietly risen since 2018 and influenced this generation of young people who take "traffic content" as a daily snack.
Cat traffic reshapes consumption
Station B cute pet UP master "Tuan Pet Yogurt Girl" had the first cat in his life in 2018.
At that time, she graduated shortly after graduation, and she was usually a heavy fan of "cute cat video content". Around 2018, there were many viewers similar to the group pet yogurt girl: they were about 20 years old, liked cats but had not yet kept cats for various reasons, and met the demand for "cute cats" by watching a large number of pet videos and graphic content.
This kind of content entered a peak period from 2018 to 2019: at that time, major platforms listed Cute Pet as an important content category and supported it in the form of content bonuses and traffic subsidies. Hidden behind this wave of "heavy awards" is the tide of graphic and text transformation to video.
"Before 2018, there were many graphic works of pet content, and these contents were concentrated on the traffic terminal such as WeChat and Baijia. From 2018 to 2019, platforms such as Douyin and B Station have risen, and they are trying to have a place in the pet category, and their advantage is video. Cattosay's former co-manager "Uncle Cat and Sica" told Tiger Sniff that in 2019, the videoization of pet content has become a general trend, traditional pet graphic creators have begun to transform, and newly entered pure videos have surged to creators.
The key impact of the content-side changes is that brands are starting to gain new traffic depressions. A pet brand entrepreneur who did not want to be named told Tiger Sniff that in 2018-2019, there was a "pet traffic dividend" on platforms that young people like, such as Douyin and Station B. The cost of these platforms is much lower than that of Weibo and WeChat, resulting in the emergence of new local pet entrepreneurship projects from the beginning, willing to choose the "new traffic world".
The invisible dividend is cat traffic.
Compared with pet dogs, the difficulty and cost of shooting cat videos are relatively low, and the traffic effect obtained is stronger. "Pet dog videos have higher requirements for shooting space, outdoor projects, and dog breeds. But cats have some natural qualities that address these pain points well. Long Long, who was responsible for the pet vertical content operation of a traffic content platform in 2019, told Tiger Sniff that at that time, their operation team found that the audience was more tolerant of cat videos: for example, in terms of breeds, if some earth cats look round and fat, or if the earth cat looks cute, the traffic will exceed varieties such as folded ear cats and jingjira cats. But in the field of pet dogs, the content presented by high-quality breeds is generally easy to get more attention.
The cat dividend also affects the brand and product side.
A person in charge of a pet products factory who did not want to be named told Tiger Sniff that in the case of pet toys, the cost and difficulty of making cat products are lower than those of dog products. In 2018-2019, the layout of international big brands and local head brands in canine products is far more than that of cat products. "The difference in gross profit space and consumption frequency is the key, and the consensus in the past circle is that pet dog-related supplies and food are the most profitable, because pet owners who have previously raised cats do not have mature cat raising methods and cat raising cognition." The person in charge said that the industrial chain formed around pet dogs is far more mature than the cat industry chain around 2019, and most of the real profits of pet hospitals are "dog business". As a result, the canine business has already attracted big names, and for the entrepreneurial team at that time, it was more difficult to compete in the cat field.
As a result, what is in front of the pet circle is a peculiar scene: on the product side, cats have relatively low entrepreneurial competitive pressure; in traffic measurement, cats have a more obvious traffic dividend; on the user side, newly emerging young people are more likely to fit in with cats. So after 2019, around the cat traffic heat, consumption fever opened at full speed: in the past three consecutive years, the cat-related food and supplies market size growth rate has become the first in the entire pet market.
The epidemic has made this "cat fever" stronger.
Tuan pet yogurt sister is one of the people who started creating pet content during the epidemic. At that time, she had the heart to try and upload her earliest cat video work. "At that time, I felt that the creative pressure was not small, because there were already many types of cat content. Many of the styles I tried eventually made it clear in the direction of cat sucking. ”
Some platform-related people told Tiger Sniff that during the epidemic period, the pet content of the headline system, B station, Baijia number and other ports has exploded, and a large number of "idle" people at home are trying to find something to do through video creation, and shooting pets is the choice of many people.
Information from Station B shows that the Z generation pet population is expanding in an orderly manner: from content consumption users to creators has become a long-term trend, and more creators have also brought more cute pet content consumption users, and further led to the emergence of new shoveling officials.
"One clear sign is that a lot of post-90s and Gen Z are the creators of this wave. Most of them are not really making money for making videos, but for expression. Wang Xiaoyan said that a typical detail is that young video creators are more willing to appear in the camera with their pets and create an atmosphere of family and partners, "not like a circus, using the cat as a tool." ”
The explosive development of content during the epidemic has combined with the explosive development of pet products on the e-commerce side. Data from Tmall and JD.com shows that the sales growth rate of pet-related products in 2020 has set a new record. Capital has also become the driving force behind this pet fever. Under the new consumption wave in 2020, pets have sprung up and become the seventh largest consumer venture capital track of the year.
"Since 2017/2018, capital has widely entered the pet track, which has played a certain role in promoting. The rapid growth of the pet track has benefited from the rapid development of China's urbanization, especially in first- and second-tier cities, and the rise in pet ownership and the popularity of the concept of refined pet breeding. Lei Qianying told Tiger Sniff that China's pet industry is expected to reach a market size of 400 billion yuan in 2022, with a compound growth rate of 14%, and has entered a stable and mature development period.
Cats have become the "value depression" and "consumption engine" in this venture capital boom: some supplies that were previously designed only for pet dogs have begun to be redesigned and launched for cats; some new nutritional products and formulas around cats have begun to be "developed" or "introduced from overseas". The deep reason for the "cat heat" in the industry is that the cat edibles market has not yet formed an industry symbol-like "user mind" brand and a different pet concept of Generation Z.
"Generation Z pets are more refined, more anthropomorphic in pet consumption, and consumer goods have expanded from basic pet survival needs to pet life needs and more advanced emotional needs." Lei Qianying believes that the identity of the Z generation for domestic products has also brought opportunities to more entrepreneurs, "The result is that the competitiveness of domestic brands in the pet track is high enough." ”
"The younger generation is more willing to spend money on pets." One pet food entrepreneur gave the example of how many Gen Z cat owners today would rather eat their own ordinary food than let their cats eat expensive cat food, "they are eager to make their cats better." ”
When the strong consumption power is invested in a relatively primary and decentralized market, it not only brings market heat, but also brings "ripening".
"There is a very clear fragmentation in the cat market itself." Liu Chang, an analyst at the new consumption and pet track, told Tiger Sniff that taking the food market as an example, the market share of the top ten cat food brands in 2019-2021 is only about 23%, and the dispersion in the supplies market is more obvious, and almost no head brand can have a market share of more than 5%, "All capital and entrepreneurs feel that they have a chance, but chaos and bubbles are also coming." ”
The fat "cat" track
Zhou Tao's cat food startup project died in March 2021.
He thought he could do a big job in the hot cat track: after starting his business in 2019, he quickly got two rounds of financing, found foundry capacity, and reached cooperation with multiple mid-waist anchors. In the summer of 2020, his project once entered the TOP30 of pet new popularity on a traffic platform.
But after several marketing fees for live broadcast rooms burned out, he found that his average monthly sales of e-commerce fell by more than 80%. "The most terrible thing is that there is no repurchase." Zhou Tao admitted that the key to all pet food projects lies in the formation of repurchase, "Young consumers are easy to be moved by you, and it is easy to change their faces in an instant." ”
It's not his feeling alone.
Many pet track practitioners believe that young consumers are more friendly to new brands, which is a "pros and cons" thing. "The upside is that they're willing to give you a chance; the challenge is that when they find dissatisfaction, they abandon it instantly, like cats."
The "grass planting strategy change around cat products" that occurs on the traffic side after 2020 is also increasing the difficulty of the game. With the further rise of post-95 consumers, some pet brand entrepreneurs have found that this generation of cat owners is "more difficult to be planted": on the one hand, they have more professional cat knowledge, on the other hand, the choices in front of them are ten times and dozens of times that of three or four years ago.
The cat content explosion of 2018-2019 is seen as one of the roots. The content creation circle of the inner volume entered the "hardcore era" around 2019 - some creators had no choice but to embark on the hardcore science and zoology route. The proportion of Gen Z consumers in this audience is relatively high, and statistics from platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou show that the demand for "knowledge-based content" from Gen Z users continues to increase after 2019.
"Ingredient party" is a high-frequency word in the pet circle: as pet knowledge improves, pet owners begin to "hardcore exploration" of pet food ingredients. In order to meet this demand, in the content circle from the second half of 2019 to the first half of 2020, a number of "hardcore ingredients" have risen to content creators, and cats are still the key direction of this trend.
"Deep-sea fish, turkey meat, lecithin, probiotics, B vitamins, silver powder... Cat owners are gradually becoming more and more familiar with these keywords. A shopkeeper who opens a pet supply store on Taobao said she clearly found that the "scientific content of information" became a necessity when communicating with a new group of consumers.
The demand side began to collapse supply. In 2020, some entrepreneurial projects began to be greatly "scientific" - pursuing a formal sense of professionalism and science. In the edibles launched by these projects, you will see a more complex and redundant ingredient list, highlighting key elements such as "probiotics, turkey meat" in a prominent position.
The "follow-the-trend party" is the "deformed trend" of this wave of entrepreneurial projects: they will actively track the composition and slogan of the latest items of foreign pet brands, and quote their own brands at the first time. And why are foreign big names so attractive? Because the ingredients of these big names are precisely the textbooks of "hardcore knowledge" pet content creators.
A headline pet creator who did not want to be named told Tiger Sniff that in 2020, these cat big names are the magic weapon of "hardcore knowledge" creators: as long as your article is related to digging deep into the ingredients of big-name cat food, it can always have a good effect on the traffic side - in order to attract traffic, you need to highlight keywords - so there is often "Turkey meat can really make cats healthier?" "Why is your cat sick?" Less probiotics to provoke the trouble" "why do craving cat food add XXX like this".
This itinerary has a strange cycle: Generation Z consumers are interested in related content because they love cats, pay extra attention to cat food ingredients - forcing content creators to study big-name ingredients and form content - reversing the consumer's mentality - forcing entrepreneurs to cater to "research and development" - there are many homogeneous, big-name flat routes, and similar publicity ideas on the market.
This is not an absolutely beautiful script for the capital world.
An investor who invested in a number of pet projects from 2018 to 2020 told Tiger Sniff that the original pet track was scattered, which meant opportunities, but premature homogenization and excessive emphasis on marketing made the track "deformed" early, and one of the results was that "after more than four years of rapid development, the new local pet brand has not yet appeared national-level cognition or industry symbol-like projects, in the e-commerce end and offline, local existing big names and international big names have soared in sales and awareness." ”
Taking the sales volume of Tmall Double Eleven pet brands in 2021 as an example, there are only 2 new local pet brands in the real sense in the top ten. In the food field, from 2020 to 2021, the brands with the highest sales on the e-commerce side have almost always been occupied by international brands such as Aspire, Royal, and Iceana. (Note: Ecanna and Aspire are of the same origin, both affiliated with Canada's Champion Pet Food Company)
With the "cat fever" reached a new high on Valentine's Day this year, some calm pet people smelled the hidden track "new crisis": in some games and meta-universes, the sales of cat-related props and products around Valentine's Day soared, and even investors have received the "virtual pets in the meta-universe" business plan.
A cat track entrepreneur expressed his doubts to Tiger Sniff: "Today's young people love cats, will young people in a few years be like this?" When one day young people can go to the metaverse to meet the spiritual comfort of "pet raising" and "emotion", is the heat of the cat still there? And once the "cat heat" disappears, will the entrepreneurship around the cat be a "cat" hair? For the immature but "fat" cat track, this is exactly what it needs to think deeply about in 2022.
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