Pet Food Marketing: Are Brands Selling Science or Just Hype?
Is your pet food brand making promises it can't prove? On this eye-opening episode of The Whisker Report, host Mary Tan welcomes Jordan Tyler of BSM Partners, a leading consulting firm serving the pet food and animal health industries, for a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the business of pet nutrition. Drawing on her background in journalism and years covering the pet food industry, Jordan reveals how buzzwords like "natural," bold health claims, and questionable research can create confusion for consumers and serious credibility problems for pet brands. They explore the growing number of lawsuits involving pet food marketing, potential conflicts of interest in industry-funded studies, and why scientific evidence and transparency are essential to building consumer trust. Plus, Jordan discusses her work on BSM Partners' Barking Mad podcast, the rise of premium and raw pet foods, and how the humanization of pets is reshaping the industry. Whether you're a pet business owner, PR professional, marketer, or curious pet parent, this episode delivers valuable insights into the science, marketing, and money behind what's in your pet's food bowl!
Listen to Episode #46 Now:
BIO:
Jordan Tyler is the Director of Media at BSM Partners and co-host of the Barking Madpodcast. She brings nearly seven years of pet industry media experience from Pet Food Processing, where she built the publication’s online presence from the ground up, established relationships with key industry stakeholders, experts and collaborators, and kept up with the latest trends and happenings in the industry. As Director of BSM Media, she will streamline and advance the company’s content strategy and develop new ways to serve its audiences and clients. Tyler currently resides in Bentonville, Ark., with her husband and their four furry family members. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Arkansas.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Whisker Report. We're a podcast dedicated to helping anyone in the pet industry, whether you're in animal welfare or running a for-profit pet business, get some PR visibility and buzz for what you do. Hello everyone.
I'm Mary Tan, founder and principal of Whisker Media, a pet public relations agency based in Buffalo, Minnesota. And I'm joined by my fabulous producer, Mark Winter of Pet Life Radio, who brings us to us, to you each and every week. Hey Mark, what is up? Hi Mary.
Well, it's the beginning of November. So you know what that means here in Florida. Yeah, it's still hot.
It is hot in Fort Lauderdale. Well, we're thrilled to be part of the Pet Life Radio family, which Mark started. Every week, Mark and I help you learn practical ways to build your brand, connect with your audience, and earn some media attention.
All right. Well, today's guest is very, very special. She is helping shape the future of pet nutrition and pet health.
Jordan Tyler recently joined BSM Partners, one of the leading consulting firms serving the pet care, animal health, and pet food industries. Throughout her career, Jordan has worked with pet brands to better understand consumer behavior, identify emerging trends, and develop products that improve the lives of pets and the people who love them. And as pet owners become increasingly focused on nutrition, wellness, longevity, and transparency, Jordan is uniquely positioned to help us understand where the industry is headed next.
Welcome to the Whisker Report, Jordan. Thank you so much, Mary. It's lovely to be here.
It's so good to see you. And I didn't realize you had such a lovely radio voice. So I just want to call that out.
Oh, thank you. It's from like 13 years being in TV news broadcasting. So you may notice that my voice switches from when I talk to you as a person.
And then all of a sudden I go into this weird broadcasting thing. It's whenever a microphone is in front of me. It's hilarious.
And people laugh at that. Hey, I'm laughing, but I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you because I totally do the same thing.
And it's funny when I go to like interview somebody at like an event and we're just talking like this. Right. I have less variety in my voice.
I have less inflection because I'm just talking to you. Right. Whereas for the podcast, you know, you got to be really exciting and all of that.
So I just I love that. I love that you just whipped it right out. That was beautiful.
Yes, it's my broadcasting voice. Yeah, it can get lower, too. I had both voice coaching when I was in the media.
So because I was a Midwesterner and I talked very nasally. So maybe I need some voice training. Well, congratulations on joining BSN Partners.
And, you know, tell us a little bit about you and your background. You and I met, of course, when you were working at Pet Food Processing. So tell us how this all came together and what you do now.
Absolutely. Yeah, happy to. So I'm totally an accidental pet professional, right? I went to journalism school.
I wanted to write. I wanted to do journalism. I wanted to investigate.
And when I graduated with my degree, the market was a little tough. The media landscape overall was kind of in this wonky place where people were either sitting on their hands or moving, you know, full steam ahead toward the next big thing, which is digital, of course. But I found myself kind of like, I don't know exactly what I want to do.
Right. I had this plan to be a journalist. But when it comes to journalism, there are so many things that you could possibly write about.
And I found myself in a sea of opportunity. Right. And so I basically just started applying for jobs, just trying to get my feet wet.
And I took a job at Salsun Publishing, which creates the Pet Food Processing magazine for industry professionals. I didn't know anything about pet food. Right.
I knew that my my pets needed to eat it to live a long and happy life. But I had no idea how it was made. I didn't know what was in it.
I didn't know how it was marketed. Literally anything. Supply chain, whole new world for me coming out of, you know, my little liberal arts bubble in college and growing up.
And so I hit the industry and just tried to soak up as much as I could. It certainly helps when you're writing for a news organization that's trying to keep up with everything that's going on. Right.
You learn really quickly. And I remember the first article that I ever wrote. I should ask this beforehand, but can we talk about brands? Of course.
OK, cool, cool, cool. So sorry. Sometimes people are sensitive to that.
And I just didn't want to like totally bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep my way through the rest of your pod. We disclose everything here on The Whisker Report. Love it.
Love it. We love that journalistic integrity. But anyway, so the first article that I wrote was covering a press release from a brand called Wild Earth.
And I actually haven't checked in with them in a while, so I don't know what's going on or if they're even still around. But they had introduced a Koji protein, so a fungal protein treat for dogs. And so this is 2018.
This is right around the time that we're starting to really see them like alternative proteins and a lot of emerging ingredients. You know, talking about sustainability, talking about our products, talking about protein demand. And then not long after that, I wrote another one that was Nulo's mix it meals, which I wrote that down because I didn't want to forget what they originally called it.
I'm sure it's different now, right? This was years ago. But it was like their mix and match line. So you'll have like a you know, you have a base and then you have a topper that's maybe a different protein and a different format.
And then you have another thing that goes on top. They called it a culinary inspired menu for pets. And I just think it was such an interesting time getting into the industry because we're at this inflection point, right, where we're really starting to change the way that the industry messages about itself.
And the products that we're starting to see are starting to mirror more of what we would want. And so I think right at the time that I started is where the humanization rubber was starting to meet the road, if you will. And so it's a perfect time for me to just get in and just soak up as much as I could.
And, you know, we've only accelerated that pace in terms of going in different directions and, you know, having new challenges to overcome and things like that. So that's a really long winded way to kind of share a little bit more about my background, how I got into pet. But I ended up at BSM Partners because I actually was interviewing the founders, Nate Thomas and Seth Kaufman for an article for Pet Food Processing.
And, you know, I had no idea that years later they would come to me with an opportunity to build this media machine. Really, it's like an engine where we're chugging along at BSM, you know, both on the business side and with the podcast that we have, Barking Mad. So it's been a ton of fun.
I feel like it's been a very, you know, breakneck type of career. I've just been like going, going, going because the pet industry just keeps going, going, going. It's amazing to be in the pet industry right now.
It really, really is. And I love talking to people because everybody's obsessed with that. Everybody's super passionate.
And there's something going on all the time. There's never a dull moment. So I know that you see that all the time, too.
Right, right. Wow. And so so what sorts of things do you do now? So you do have a podcast called Barking Mad.
Yes, yes. So the podcast existed before I joined BSM Partners, but it was more of a trade industry podcast. It was actually under a different name.
I think it was called the Pet Industry Podcast. And it really it was geared more toward industry professionals. Right.
That's what BSM does. We help other companies bring products to market and validate claims. And X, Y, Z, we're an end to end consulting firm.
And so we have a really robust B2B presence. Right. But we have all this expertise and all this domain knowledge and all these subject matter experts, and we're not bringing it directly to consumers.
Right. There's still like that layer of like marketing sheen that happens before consumers get this information. And so we said, you know, what if we just gave them this information? Right.
They have a right to know. We understand the science of nutrition and of care at a really, really deep level and are able to provide a balanced perspective that I think is missing in the industry and really just let people figure it out for themselves. Right.
Empower them with the knowledge that they need to make the right decisions for them. Because pet ownership looks different to everybody. And so trying to kind of blanket over it with here's what you should do, you know, or here's what you shouldn't do is way too simple.
It's oversimplification. And I think what we're trying to do is bring that science back, that individuality back and just do it in a way that's digestible and fun. You know, we you know, we can't not have fun while we're doing it.
So we do have a lot of fun, but it is very scientific. I learn new things every single day just researching topics. My co-host, Dr. Stephanie Clark, she's a boarded companion animal nutritionist.
She's so smart, constantly teaching me things. And yeah, I think we make a good team. I think, you know, I got like the J school, you know, journalism chops and she comes in with like the hard science.
And we just want to educate, really. So speaking of journalism and, you know, the facts, I have a question for you. So BSM also deals with companies that make false claims.
Is that correct as well? So how do you guys deal with that? And how do you guys figure out that they're making false claims? And so is somebody looking at their marketing? Yeah. Yeah. So there's a few different pieces that go into it.
And this is such a good question. I'm so glad that we're going here is it kind of depends. There's a lot of claims.
There's a lot of buzzwords. There's a lot of things that we say as an industry that either aren't actually regulated. Right.
So there's no set standard for them so that when you don't have a standard, you know, it kind of opens the door for everybody can use a claim kind of however they want to write. Natural is a really, really great example. The definition of natural is so nebulous that any brand could use it could make an argument into using it and move forward with that, and that would be fine.
But I think when it comes down to the physiological needs of the pet, that's when we need to draw a hard line. Right. If you're promising something to a pet owner and you didn't actually test whether your product can do that well, safely and in the time frame that you're promising, then you really need to go back and do some more research into that product because to make such bold claims, right, we we see them.
They're becoming increasingly bold, I kind of think. Yeah. And, you know, we love our pets.
We want to do right by them. We feel guilty, you know, even when we make what we think are the best decisions because we we don't know. Right.
They're like babies. They can't tell us what they want or what they need. And so we're just assuming we're anthropomorphizing and all of that.
But I think it's just a matter of staying true to the animal. Right. What are the animal's needs? We can at a certain level, we have to have that consumer preference embedded into it because, again, we're selling to the consumer.
Right. It's a really tricky line that we have to walk. But I think there's a way that we can do that with a little bit more integrity.
I think it's important for us to to hold brands accountable for what they say and do. And there are a lot of really great companies out there doing a lot of really great things. But I think sometimes we can get a little bit wrapped up in like the marketing theater of everything and forget.
Right. That, you know, we shouldn't be over promising. We shouldn't either be oversimplifying.
Right. Because if you oversimplify something too much, then you start to misinform people and they misunderstand. And people want to understand when it comes to pet nutrition.
It's just really complicated. Right. We never I don't know about you, but I never got an education in nutrition, you know, in like grade school and in college.
You know, I would have to go seek that out if I wanted to learn about nutrition. And yeah, I have the Internet so I could totally do that. You know, that's still kind of a personal problem.
But systemically, we just don't know enough about nutrition to just blindly trust, you know, companies, I think. And, you know, we saw through the DCM debate that happened and started in 2018 as well. This mistrust, sense of mistrust in the industry.
And I think it's just a matter of really separating, OK, what do we need to be doing for the animal and making sure that we do those things correctly, making sure we prove those things, that those things are based in science and evidence before we make such bold claims for consumers? Because really, at the end of the day, we have to advocate and protect that consumer. And it's both the pet parent and the pet, in my opinion. Yeah.
And, you know, this all leads back to PR, too, because you cannot put out false claims because you as a journalist know that journalists can check your claims and they can call you out on it. Right. And that's when it can turn into a crisis, when you're like saying, you know, this pet food is great for hypothyroidism.
Right. And there's nothing to back it up. I have another question for you.
A lot of pet food companies will put out these studies and the studies are done by their own research scientists. They're not going to say anything bad about their own product. That seems to be an issue in the pet industry, too.
You know, that's a really interesting kind of conflict of interest that in some ways you can't avoid it. Right. Because inside the industry, we have such incredible domain knowledge that really is very species specific.
And that comes back to, you know, making overzealous claims. You know, things that were tested maybe in humans or maybe in rats or in horses or pigs, you know, we can make assumptions about how they would interact in animals, but we should really test them on the species that we intend to feed in order to fully understand. Total, total tangent there.
But when it comes to studies, we have this amazing knowledge. The people that are working in the industry absolutely need to be doing their own research. It's part of, you know, kind of a self-regulating part of the industry.
Right. We do what we say we're going to do. And here's the proof we can show it to you.
I think when it becomes a conflict of interest is when a company sets out to do a study and they have an outcome in mind. And research is really interesting. And it's said about data, too, right? Or maybe statistics.
Yeah, maybe data. I actually can't remember what they say about what. But I'm just going to say this is that, you know, data, you can make data tell you whatever you want it to.
You can make the stats tell you whatever you want it to. Well, it's the same thing with a study, with research, the way that you design it matters as much as the way that you conduct it, because it's going to guide the way that you conduct it. The things that you control for the things that you without getting too in the weeds, just making sure that it's as realistic, practical and repeatable as possible.
And so if you design a study that doesn't accomplish those things in order to get the outcome that you really want, not necessarily the outcome that's the most scientifically justifiable. Yeah, that's where the real gray area starts to come in. And that's where I would say, OK, maybe this is a conflict of interest.
I will say a lot of companies work with universities as well. And there's really only a limited number of universities that are on this kind of research. And so it's hard.
I know it's hard. I know it's expensive, right? It's very, very expensive to do this kind of research. And then another thing comes back to the proprietary nature of companies doing their own research, right? If it was something more like a consortium where we were sharing this information, then maybe we would have more public data, more public peer reviewed research into pet nutrition and pet care topics that we need or that sometimes I think we formulate products and innovate with.
Even though the science isn't really there, we just like to pretend that it's there and then we do the product anyway. But yeah, it's kind of this whole mess of like just being mindful about what you're messaging when you're doing a study. You know, partner with the university, partner with a firm, partner with people that are third party observers, people that don't have a horse in this race that are doing it for pets.
And you will have more credibility. That's just as simple as it is, really. Wow.
Well, hold that thought, Jordan, because we're going to take a quick break and we're going to come back with so much more with Jordan in just a little bit. And we're back with Jordan, who is with BSM Partners. Jordan, so does BSM look at constantly? Are you looking constantly at pet food claims? Tell us how your firm works.
Like you have your clients, but you're always on the lookout for false claims as well, correct? Yeah. So a little background to BSM. The company was started by Nate Thomas and Seth Kaufman.
They were both actually at Simmons Pet Food at the time that they met, and they really saw a gap in the industry for experts that had real pet food specific domain knowledge to enter the space and provide real boots on the ground, practical support for manufacturing, for supply chain, for regulatory, you name it. It was just the two of them for a while. And it was really because they felt so strongly about holding the industry accountable and providing that advocacy and empowering people with the knowledge of maybe sometimes what happens behind closed doors, right? Sometimes it's about saying the quiet parts out loud, but we just feel that pet owners in the industry deserve the full picture.
And so we really built the firm on that belief. And we've taken that into various, you know, initiatives and channels. But it really is the through line of the business is, is this right for the pet? Is it going to work in the market? And how do we marry those two things? Right.
Because if if it's not going to tick both of those boxes, then we can't do it. So I think generally we are always we always have a pulse on the industry. We have an internal newsletter that we really prioritize so that everybody in our firm knows exactly what's going on in the industry.
They know exactly what to talk about with clients that have questions. They know about the latest developments and all of that. And they also know about some of the latest claims that are maybe coming under scrutiny or things like that.
We also have a really robust insights department. So really taking a long, hard look at the market, understanding where it's been and leveraging our network and our our internal conversations basically to say, OK, well, if we keep on this trajectory, we'll probably go here. But, you know, what if we go here instead? And actually, this might be better for pets.
And so I think it's not that we're constantly looking at claims and scrutinizing things. You know, we're not just sitting there hitting refresh on a browser trying to get somebody, which would be fun. Don't get me wrong.
But we're just so embedded in what's going on in the industry because we have to be as consultants. But at the same time, we're not satisfied with just knowing what's going on. We we feel like we need to comment on it.
We feel like we need to position ourselves about it. And we hope that the industry will kind of, I don't know, take to heart some of our thoughts about some of the trends, some of the claims, some of the issues that we see happening in pet right now. So if you're a marketing or PR person for a pet food company and you see these random claims, what would you suggest you tell senior leadership? I would tell senior leadership to have a regulatory person look into those claims.
Pet food is interesting. We all know the regulatory environment. Woof is a little a little sticky right now.
And it's been a little sticky, right? There's been a lot of friction in it. And so I definitely think addressing it through a regulatory channel. It could be the FDA.
It could be your state regulator. A lot of times state regulators are actually the ones that are regulating things like claims. And so I would recommend that you do your own internal look into it.
I won't say investigation because that sounds super official. Look into it. See if it's something that you want to pursue and have your regulatory person reach out to either a state or a federal official to just ask some questions.
Right. We want to first understand and then we can decide, you know, was there maybe some ulterior motive here? Is this a little lofty? That kind of thing. Yeah.
So have you seen a lot of lawsuits when it comes to pet companies making false claims? How often does that happen? So interestingly enough, I think we had like maybe four or five the last couple of years, and I think there's been like seven already this year alone and we're just in well, we're ending June about. So about one a month. I think there were two in May and I haven't checked recently.
So don't hold me to that. There might be eight at this point. But yeah, I think that as consumers, as pet owners, you know, we are skeptical because we have reason to be skeptical because we feel like brands have overpromised and undersold in the past.
And that goes all the way back to DCM, which is kind of a whole other rabbit hole that I won't I won't take us down today. For our listeners who don't know, DCM was related to grain free food, possibly causing heart issues. Correct.
In dogs. That was found to be untrue by the FDA. Correct.
Is that correct? I just want to double check. I don't want to. Yeah, that's actually maybe like the simplest, most concise summary that I've ever heard.
So kudos. So very complicated. That's smart.
And so I have to synthesize things down to being very, very simple. Please, please, please. What was your question? I'm so, so sorry.
I just got off on a tangent and then couldn't come back. This is a podcast where we just go with the flow. So we'll we'll just move on.
In fact, let's take a quick break and then we're going to come back with Jordan and try to remember the question. And we're back with Jordan. And we were talking about lawsuits and we both our brains just went kaput.
But we're back. And so, Jordan, finish what you were talking about when it comes to lawsuits, when it comes to pet food. Yes, yes.
And I just want to recapture the DCM tangent that I went on was related. And it's because I saw one of the lawsuits that's happened this year was related to DCM. It was related to a pet owner or a group of pet owners.
Right. Oftentimes these are class action lawsuits. Believed that they had fed their dog a product that caused their dog to go into congestive heart failure and possibly die.
Like you said, Mary, you know, we pretty conclusively proven that this is a really complicated issue and that we cannot connect diet to this disease alone. It's multifactorial. And also we have some serious questions about the actual rate of increase of this disease.
We don't think that those numbers are quite right. I digress. Lawsuits.
We're still talking about it, right? It's eight years after all of this started. And still we have consumers that feel wronged enough by pet companies, pet food companies, that they are willing to come together and sue, which it's not cheap to sue somebody. But, you know, class action lawsuit suing a corporation.
That's probably a pretty big settlement. So I see the appeal, right, of putting together a class action lawsuit around claims, knowing that there are so many unregulated or just generally too vague claims out there. A reasonable consumer, right? We have to appease what a reasonable consumer would understand or believe in the court of law.
And I think the claim situation that we've gotten ourselves into is just like a proof of concept of for these class action lawsuits, right? Like they were going to happen if we didn't actually back up the things that we were saying and slapping on bags with real science that people could see. They would probably happen anyway, right? Because we are busy. There's a lot going on.
And not all of us have time to read peer reviewed research. That's why we have the Barking Bad podcast and millions of other resources for you out there. But I think it's just part of the cycle that we've created.
Like, I don't think that we could have avoided consumers taking action and litigation if what we were doing leading up to all of this like was actually like verifiable, right? Like if it was verifiable, we wouldn't have to sue or all these lawsuits would be dismissed in mediation and none of them would ever get settled. And a lot of them do get settled. So I think it's a fascinating, fascinating conversation.
I could probably go off on seven other tangents about it. But yeah, absolutely. My final question to you is about pet food trends and raw diets and how that is, you know, becoming more and more popular.
There's more and more integrative and holistic vets. And in full disclosure, I represent a lot of them in my client list. And so what do you think is happening in that part of the pet food industry? In terms of like the sales of premium foods are really going up, right? I mean, that even though we're kind of in, I wouldn't call it maybe a recession, people are still willing to spend a lot of money on on pet food.
That's a still a growing part of the industry. And that's really interesting because a lot of it is raw, freeze dried raw, you know, and a lot of traditional vets don't like raw. And the main, you know, your purinas, your Mars, it's primarily cooked, right? Cooked kibble or whatever.
So tell us, what is that part of the market doing to the rest of the market? Because I see like Purina I know owns Merrick. They started out with a raw coated kibble. So I feel like they're all they're moving that way.
Yeah, I totally, totally agree. Thank you for clarifying. There's so many, so many different aspects to this.
To break it all down, we would probably need like a whole other hour. But I think generally the trend toward premiumization is really we want to humanize our pets. And so we want them to eat like we want ourselves to eat, right? Things like human grade meat, things like whole fruits and vegetables.
The issue with mass, you know, feeding these types of diets is they're really expensive. They are more expensive to produce. And that means they're going to be more expensive to purchase.
And because they're premium, right? That adds another, you know, zero to the end of the price tag there. When in reality, what the pet food industry has been doing for so long is upcycling other products from other industries. Things like the wheat.