Trone Research and Consulting

Veterinarians discuss medications and health-related services with clients every day, but they’re not always as confident about recommending pet foods, treats and supplements, especially if they don’t carry the product in-clinic. In fact, many veterinarians are actually worried that endorsing a product they don’t carry will hurt their bottom line or take valuable visit time that should be used to discuss something more important.

Here’s yet another article about marketing to Millennials. You already know they use social media. An article from the Wall Street Journal shows that Millennials spend almost 8 hours a day using social media. What you may not know is that one of the biggest mistakes in marketing is lumping Millennials into one big category. According to research by Curalate, there are 14 distinct Millennial personas, and at Trone Research + Consulting, we know how to create content to get the attention of each one of them. There’s a Millennial called “The Boss Babe.” She probably has a dog. So does “the Quarter-Life Crisis,” because pets make everything better.

Many veterinarians have expressed concern about pet owners using the internet to seek advice about pet healthcare rather than visiting a veterinarian for an examination of their pet by a professional. Veterinarians fear that pet owners may even reduce their visits to the clinic due to the abundance of information readily available online. These concerns are understandable. But need veterinarians fret?

If you play a role in marketing today you’ve likely heard the attention span of the average human has shrunk to only eight seconds. Last year, the New York Times published a story that stated our attention span is now shorter than that of a goldfish. Since we are exposed to seemingly endless choices and messages every moment of every day, it’s no wonder our ability to focus has decreased. As a result, marketers are constantly seeking new ways to effectively reach out to their audience and gain their attention.

The battle for pet pharmaceutical sales has grown to a point where brick-and-mortar retailers and Internet/mail order retailers accounted for a combined 42% of the nearly $8 billion in national pet medication sales in 2014 according to a report by the market research firm, Packaged Facts. The same report forecasts that pet pharmaceuticals will be one of the highest growth areas of pet retailing over the next 10 years due to increased over-the-counter drugs and interest by chain retailers.

Having too few options in life can be limiting and frustrating. This is especially true in the pet pharmaceutical market where pet owners want more prescription options from both a price and convenience standpoint. We uncovered this trend in our recent Pet Pharmaceutical Market Study, which revealed a shift in pet pharmaceutical revenue from the veterinary pharmacy to online pharmacies and brick-and-mortar retail pharmacies.

Welcome Pet Brand Marketers to Millennial Training 101. At Trone Research + Consulting we understand that millennials can be a challenging breed of shoppers to reach. We’ve put together a series of training videos to help your brand answer common questions, including: How do you get a millennial to come when they’re called? How do you make a millennial do tricks? And how do you keep a millennial from running away?

When it comes to canine owners, they can be as different as the breeds they care for. While some are highly involved and very attentive to what’s going on in their dog’s lives, others prefer to care from a distance. These dog owners come in all varieties and are grouped into four main categories. Want a deeper look into these segments from our extensive 2014 Pet Health study? Stay tuned to this blog or contact us directly.

We constantly rely on data to point our clients in the right direction when shaping their brands. The quality of the solutions we deliver can only be as good as the data our research provides. Recently, we learned an important lesson in how sample size can affect both research results and the conclusions we draw from it.


Doug Barton, President & CEO

Doug Barton

President & CEO

Doug is a career research, analytics and brand marketing executive with more than 35 years of experience working with Top 50 market research firms, Fortune 500 companies and marketing firms on client and supplier side.

Read More

He is a leader and advisor with a proven track record of solving business challenges for start-ups as well as small to large businesses across the world. Doug’s industry experience spans across hospitality, telecom, CPG, financial services, insurance, textile and apparel, turf and ornamental, animal health and retail.

Kimberly Ness

Kimberly Ness

SVP, Insights & Marketing

With 25+ years of experience across research, branding and marketing, Kimberly has the unique ability to transform complicated data into a simple strategic plan that achieves results.

Read More

She has led marketing efforts for global and national brands and has a specialty in animal health, working with brands like Zoetis, Boeringer Ingelheim and Mars Petcare. She is known as an industry thought leader and has been a featured speaker at Global Pet Expo, AAHA, CBI, Brakke Consulting and Fetch, a dvm360 conference.

Tom Minsel

Tom Minsel

PhD, Head of Research & Data Science

Tom is our PhD Statistician and master data miner with 25+ years in direct marketing, customer targeting, modeling and research design.

Read More

His areas of expertise include statistics, applied and theoretical measurement, psychological research, survey research, summative and formative evaluation, SAS, sampling, trend analysis and generally all things analytics. Tom oversees more than 65 comprehensive studies each year to help clients better understand their customers.