It’s time to be different

Conference chairman Ralf Majer-Abele described the title of the International Pet Conference as a provocative slogan. Differentiating oneself from the competition is possible on a small scale as well as on a large scale, for example through country-specific aspects or individual areas in a company. Against the background of the recently experienced recession in particular, highlighting one’s own strengths has become more important. This was a topic considered by the first speaker at the event. Dr Oliver Koll, director of business insights at Europanel, commented that the financial crisis from mid-2008 to mid-2009 had reinforced the trend among consumers of economising in their own day-to-day existence. “The recession had no effect on the number of pets,” stressed Dr Koll. Private label products were a major beneficiary of this trend, with sales figures increasing noticeably in the second quarter of 2008. Nevertheless, the success of a private label was not inevitable, because here too emotion and innovation were factors that could not be disregarded. From monologue to dialogue The importance of brands to the future of the retail trade was then considered in depth by Ibrahim Ibrahim. The managing director of Portland Design in London emphasised that brands had to evoke emotion in customers, and the specialist retail trade had to become a theatre of dreams in this regard. Ibrahim Ibrahim highlighted computer manufacturer Apple as the perfect example: “More personality, more communication, and more emotion,” the professional retail consultant recommended. Torsten Toeller, CEO of Europa’s leading pet store chain Fressnapf, endorsed the recommendations of the previous speaker with his description of the redesign of existing Fressnapf outlets – the so-called “future stores”. The newly developed colour schemes and lighting concepts were intended to provoke an emotional response and underline skills. This goal was also being realised by the XXL stores, which were bringing “emotions to the sector”, according to Toeller. A key element of this was the presentation of pets towards the rear of the store, to entice customers further into the store. Innovate or die In a variation on the conference slogan, Loic Moutault, general manager of Mars Petcare Germany, also highlighted the significance of emotions: “Petcare is not only feeding, it’s much more.” The trend towards single-serve underlined the trend towards feeding dogs and cats smaller quantities at more frequent…