It’s Time To Target Hispanic Pet Owners

By Lee Vann, Founder and CEO, Captura Group

A recent report from Packaged Facts, Hispanic Pet Owners in the U.S.: 20 Million and Growing, really caught my attention since there are 20 million Hispanic pet owners in the U.S.

This fact really puts the magnitude of the Hispanic market opportunity into perspective for me. Look at it this way: there are a total of 23 million people in Australia and 20 million Hispanic pet owners in America.

The report does a great job of not only quantifying the Hispanic pet owner market today but also into the future, stating, “Between 2016 and 2021 Latinos will account for around half (50%) of the growth in the number of pet owners in the United States.”

Given this data, the next logical question is how should brands target Hispanic pet owners?

Hispanic Pet Owners Speak English y Español

The Packaged Facts report found that more acculturated Hispanics, who tend to prefer English, and younger Hispanics are more likely to be pet owners. Our research using Facebook Audience Insights found the same thing, but also interestingly found that Spanish-preferring Hispanics love pets as well.

According to Facebook, there are a total of 12.5 million Hispanics who have an interest in pets, or 38% of all Hispanics on Facebook. Compare this to 49% of all Americans who have the same interest. At first glance, one might conclude that Hispanics just aren’t interested in pets, but digging deeper we find that, in fact, they are.

Using Facebook’s Hispanic Affinity audience, we can determine the interest Hispanics have in family pets by language preference. Here is what we found:

    English-preferring Hispanics

  •         3.75 million interested in pets
  •         58% – index to U.S. 118

    Bilingual Hispanics

  •         3.25 million interested in pets
  •         38% – index to U.S. 79

    Spanish-preferring Hispanics

  •         5.5 million interested in pets
  •         44% – index to U.S. 91

This analysis points to a clear opportunity for pet brands and affiliated products and services to target and win with both English- and Spanish-preferring Hispanics. Relative to the U.S. market, English-preferring Hispanics are huge pet fans, but the Spanish segment is larger than the English segment by 1.75 million individuals.

Let’s dig deeper. In the U.S., 63% of those on Facebook with an interest in pets are women. This is consistent among English-preferring Hispanics but among Spanish-preferring Hispanics, men are more likely to have an interest in pet ownership.

Obviously, this analysis could go even deeper, but the point should be clear.

The Hispanic pet owner market is huge and will continue growing exponentially. The best way to target Hispanic pet owners is to intimately understand who they are, including language preferences, and develop marketing strategies to reach them in a meaningful way.

About the author: Lee Vann, Founder and CEO, Captura Group

 

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