Note: This article was published in the July '96 issue of the magazine "Pet Age."

The arrival of a series of new technologies which enable transmission of information over the telephone lines could change our way of life and the Pet Care business. Across all ages and all civilizations from the ancient Egyptians to the urban yuppies, man has had pets. Of course, the kind of pets they've had has changed greatly as society itself changed. The "dog-in-the-farmyard" kind of pet reflected the "pet needs" of agrarian society: Utilitarian first, as a defender or a herder, and companion second. Then, in the 1830's, the invention of a new technology which allowed us to control cold and refrigerate or freeze food changed the world. Man became able to preserve food long enough so that it could be transported far away from the production area, yet keep good taste and nutritional value. This made it possible to build large cities where people could congregate to work on things other than feeding themselves. Cold-control made farming a profession rather than the required way of life. In short, cold-control disrupted the equilibrium of agrarian society. It destroyed some jobs, and created others. The pets changed too, as the "cat-in- the-bathroom" became more frequent than the dog in the farmyard. The Pet industry was born out of the consequences of these changes: From canned pet food to litter boxes and pooper scoopers, there was a flurry of new needs coming from the presence of pets in an urban environment, and countless inventions to address those needs.

Now, imagine for a minute that you had had, at that time, a wonderful insight into the profound changes that would result from cold-control and that you had been looking for new product opportunities. If you had anticipated the number of cats living in apartments with owners who have barely the time to cook for themselves, you could have started a cat litter and pet food business. Big changes create big opportunities... The insight of hindsight allows us to clearly see the problems that the new technology resolved or created, and the great opportunities that resulted for the savvy inventor.

The question for today is: What is the next invention that will disrupt the balance of society and create opportunities for those who can find ways to resolve the problems it will cause? In particular, how would those changes affect the Pet Care business?

This new revolution could well be here in the form of the "Transmission of Digitized Information." It is what enables us to send a text, a picture, a sound or an entire symphony over any distance, to one or to millions of recipients, all in a relatively short period of time. This invention affects the majority of today's workers. According to the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, 73.3 million of the 129 million civilians in the workforce are in information jobs, slightly more than 55% of all jobs. As electronic information exchange increases, and workers are no longer subject to the imperative of congregating in order to work effectively, the face of society will no doubt change. The face of our cities will change too! Skyscrapers are losing their reason for being. As David Birch, a consultant, puts it: "[Digitized information is] a solvent that decomposes building types."

SURVEY OF TELECOMMUTERS ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS

To a New Product Development professional such as myself, these issues are tantalizing. A standard approach to new product development is to first uncover existing consumer problems before thinking of creative ways to resolve them. In this case, we are faced with the daunting task of anticipating the problems and the opportunities that the use of Transmission of Digitized Information technologies will create.

In an attempt to gain some understanding of the human behaviors and attitudes associated with the adoption of the Transmission of Digitized Information technologies, we conducted a survey on the Internet. We chose to conduct the survey on the Internet because we felt that the people we'd recruit would be computer savvy and should be representative of "early adopters" of the digital information age. The survey was conducted between August and November, 1995, by recruiting for Telecommuters and non- Telecommuters. Our assumption was that the increased isolation of the Telecommuter would be associated with different behavior. We were also interested in comparing some of the basic work habits of these two kinds of electronically savvy workers.

The results of the survey have been first and more fully reported in an article published by the same author in the Journal of Consumer Marketing (MCB University Press Ltd.) In summary, the behavior of Telecommuters is surprisingly similar to that of office workers with one significant exception: They own more pets than average office workers. Telecommuters have pets, mostly cats. (Table 1) While pet ownership in our total sample was 62.7%, and similar to the US average (63%), Telecommuters are more likely to own cats than average (47% incidence vs. 30% in our non-telecommuting sample and 25.5% US average in cat ownership) and to own larger numbers of cats than do office workers (2.7 cats vs. 1.8 cats).

Table 1

This higher incidence of pet ownership does make sense: One of the more frequent complaints of telecommuters is isolation and it is very likely that a pet provides some relief. This trend should be further compounded by the time and housing flexibility that Telecommuters benefit from. They can live in the country and have a big dog. They can live in apartments and have a cat or a small dog, and have the time to walk it as frequently as needed.

Telecommuters are a very experienced group of professionals but the telecommuting experience still is new to them: While this conclusion seems to be common sense, we were surprised at the figures: Our Telecommuters averaged 17 years of work experience compared to 11 1/2 years for the office workers. They have telecommuted an average of 4 years, probably as a result of the relative newness of the technology. With 17 years of work experience, the average telecommuter is no "Spring Chicken." The kids have left the house and the pet could well be a means of moderating this newly gained solitude.

They work long hours, but take long breaks. Their work day starts around 8:15 am, only 6 minutes earlier than that of the office worker. It ends 11 hours later at 7:15pm, a full 20 minutes after the Non-telecommuter. During the workday, however, the Telecommuter is able to take longer breaks totaling 2 hours and 20 minutes, while his office-working counterpart takes only 1 hour and 15 minutes in breaks. They definitely have the time to walk the dog...

A lot of the Telecommuter's work is done on the computer: They report working about 7 1/2 hours each work day with their computer (vs. approximately 6 1/4 hours for their office working counterparts).

Telecommuters work out of their homes and are likely to have a family member nearby: 87% telecommute from home though 47% have access to an office. 62% say that there is another person nearby, who is not a co-worker.

Telecommuters have the same number of phone or electronic contacts during the workday as their non-telecommuting counterparts have, but have a significantly lower number of in-person contacts. (Table 2) Telecommuters interact face-to-face with only 5 persons per day, compared to the electronically wired office worker's 14 daily in-person interactions.

Table 2:

Telecommuters and early adopters of the "information-age" technology have very similar wishes about the tasks they want to do in person and those they would prefer to do on-line. (Table 3) Making travel reservations, banking, and ordering a video are three areas which could readily be done on-line as far as everyone is concerned. Several respondents are already able to bank and do travel reservations on-line. Buying groceries is still something that is moderately preferred as an in-person activity. Interestingly, full time telecommuters prefer to shop for groceries in-person, more so than office workers. Note that several respondents already have access to an on-line grocery shopping service. Having a conversation is seen more as an in-person activity, particularly by non-telecommuters. (Let's keep in mind that the respondents were all recruited on the Internet lists where such 'on-line conversations' are the norm.) Of the other 'in-person' activities, the low interest in on-line car shopping is a surprise. We were expecting that more respondents would have opted to forego the stressful process of buying a car in person.
Table 3

The Pet opportunity:

We have already reported that, of all the findings of the research, the higher incidence of pet ownership among Telecommuters was one of the most significant. If you accept our hypothesis that today's telecommuters as the early adopters of a growing new technology show the early signs of a broader trend to come, then the pet market will grow significantly over the next few decades. There are other aspects of the research which seem to point to an immediate opportunity for the Pet Business: There seems to be some level of acceptance for on-line shopping among telecommuters. This fact is significant because, as telecommuters spend most of their working hours on-line, this may be a very efficient medium through which to reach them. To find out more, we did a brief search of Internet sites looking for those containing the words "pet supplies": We found close to 600 sites. One of them, "CyberPet," even claims to be in the top 5% of all Internet sites for the number of visitors. Did others think of the opportunity before we did our research?

Does this mean that the opportunity has been discovered, and that your chance of pioneering the business of on-line pet supplies has already been usurped by someone else? Not really... We spent several hours interviewing some of the pet business owners who are already connected, some with their own Internet home page, others with only an e-mail address. Most of the people we talked to were just beginning, and had only generated an infinitesimal amount of sales over the "Net." "We do it more for fun, because others are doing it," was a frequent comment. And yet , we also found a store in Washington state that uses e- mail to take orders from the remote San Juan islands; a Vet-supply store on the East coast that has begun shipping orders to the Midwest; and a Midwest pet supplies store in Woodstock, Illinois, that has set up its own home page to advertise its more unique items. From their own admission, none of the businesses we talked to had begun marketing on the Net. Most didn't even know where to begin. Yet, we know that Internet marketing can be done and are sure that once the marketing techniques become more widely known, the medium could become a very efficient adjunct to your business activities.

In summary, we anticipate an excellent opportunity for a series of on-line stores or service providers which would cater to the needs of cats, dogs and other pets and of their telecommuting owners. If nothing else, the opportunity is one of communication: we know how and where to reach these pet owners efficiently. We can communicate with them at very low cost, take orders, hear their complaints, and be among the first to do the interactive marketing of which many speak, but few have experienced.

Jacques Chevron Chicago, 04/15/96

©1996 Jacques Chevron

Jacques Chevron
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