Pets perk up livestream selling

Bulldogs who can skateboard, Samoyed with angelic smiles, orange cats who are soft and cute many pets have dominated live broadcast rooms, while many netizens are not stingy about giving likes and digital gifts to them.

As of May last year, the platform had a pet live broadcast every 5.4 seconds, according to a report released by Kuaishou. It is undeniable that these cute pets have become powerful promotions for platforms such as TikTok, Kuaishou, and Taobao Live to attract viewers and users.

In the past two years, cute pets on short video platforms have become more and more fruitful, and there are more and more people "cloud petting.'' Pet content creators have sprung up on short video and live broadcast platforms.

According to the person in charge of the related content in TikTok, there are around 25,000 pet bloggers on the platform who have over 10,000 fans.

Another relevant person in charge of Kuaishou says there are 75,000 pet bloggers active on the Kuaishou platform, and the number of pet short videos played in a single day is as high as 700 million times.

The market size of the pet industry in the mainland was close to 300 billion yuan (HK$361 billion) in 2020, according to a report released by iResearch.

The report also states that the pet market will continue to maintain steady growth in the next three years. The compound growth rate is expected to reach 14.2 percent.

The total number of cats and dogs kept as pets exceeded 100 million in 2018, the report shows, and the market size will reach 445.6 billion yuan by 2023.

Fiasco Zheng Fei, vice president of Guangdian Capital who is familiar with pet products investment, said the only child in the family usually lacks accompany and would love to keep a pet, but they were prevented by the cramped living environment or prohibitions by schools.

"Therefore, the viewers' attention is effortlessly drawn by the subculture of pet live broadcast, regardless of whether they have kept a pet, when pet content appears on those shorts and livestreaming platforms," said Zheng.

However, the potential of pet celebrities has already been seen in western countries.

Since the launch of Instagram in 2010, the number of times "cat" - the hashtag - has been used on the platform 245 million times, and "dog" has been used 314 million times.

The views gained by these furred internet celebrities have been monetized in various ways.

Loni Edwards, who is the founder of The Dog Agency, a talent management company focusing exclusively on animal influencers, disclosed in an interview with the Financial Times, that an account with 100,000 followers can earn between US$1,000 (HK$7,800) and US$2,000 for one post, on average. The price of a pet account with more than one million followers will earn over US$10,000 for just one post.

Some owners establish Intellectual Properties for their pets and launch related merchandise.

In China's livestreaming e-commerce industry, one of the most well-known dog celebrities would be "Never", who is a bichon petted by Austin Li Jiaqi, the top-tier Taobao Live seller.

An eyeshadow palette that has Never's face printed on was first released in Li's Taobao Live for pre-sale. The 160,000 inventory was sold out in less than 10 seconds, and the other 300,000 palettes sold out on the official launch day.

Meione, Li's agency, has also grouped Never's kids and grandkids to create an IP named "Never's Family" since October last year. During the June 18 Sales this year, the total turnover of the "Never's Family" products have exceeded 30 million yuan. At present, the flagship store has 13 products, mostly clothing, shoes, accessories and mini-figures with its own IP.

Some pet service companies have also been using the furred celebrities as their spokespeople, which a golden retriever and a corgi act as tour guides and walk around a pet homestay with the netizens on the Taobao Live broadcast. The furnishings, including a swimming pool, swings, and slides that are specially set up for dogs, has made netizens feel that "being a pet is more enjoyable than being a human".

Besides developing business cooperations with advertisers or product sponsors after accumulated a certain fan base, some video creators have even established their own pet food brands and started e-commerce companies.

However, making a pet internet celebrity is more difficult than it sounds like, especially for a sole proprietor. It requires thorough planning, and the investment is no less than that of making a real star. Many pet managers need to communicate with advertisers, replying to fan letters and keep posting new content for different social media platforms.

In which, some of the pet owners, who are also being the manager of their pet will also have to edit video, write filming plots, arrange the shooting locations, prepare with props and costumes. As pets are uncontrollable, a planned plot can easy to vanish without the cooperation of the pets.

Moreover, the fierce competition among the pet live broadcasters is turning the whole sector into a battlefield and speeding up the reshuffle of the livestreaming industry.

A lot of full-time pet vloggers are retreating from the "battleground".

After resigning from their jobs, they could not sustain their popularity and had to return to the job market, some of the once-glamorous vloggers told mainland media. Some of them tried to work part-time to earn a living and hold on to generate more content.

To survive in the market competition, it is seemingly impossible to lure followers with superficial content. It has to be creative, one-of-a-kind, and full of commercial potential.

"Intimacy between the vloggers and their pets is crucial to create good content, which is not easy to archive," Tang Zhonglin, chief executive of BOP Entertainment - a livestreamer agency, said.

In addition, more business model support is needed as there are very few ways to make revenues despite the rising pet economy.

Ke Ming, who attracted over 20 million followers online, has not advertised any products during his live broadcast. Some of the other popular livestreamers were selling pet food, but the number of views and sales were not notable. It may be because not all the fans of those vloggers are pet owners.

Also, as pet vloggers seldom show up in the videos, it is difficult for viewers to have confidence in the products promote during livestreams hosted by the pet owners, instead of the cute creatures who won the hearts of the followers.

"I take a cautiously optimistic view on the liquidity of pet live broadcast since the two major pet products, which are pet food and healthcare services, are not suitable to advertise in livestreamings," said Zheng. "It is unlikely for the pet parents to try different brands of pet food as pets are used to products from a certain brand".

Akin to keeping pets, the short video platform needs to "take good care" of the industry with brands and content creators, so as to support its growth.