Buying Animal products through social media

"Existential meanings are used as a means of attracting consumers’ attention to the advertised product, while determining a deep psychological impact of the message. In advertising narratives an individual’s perception of the animal image rests upon its anthropomorphic characteristics transformed in the artistic space of a promotional video." - Irina M. Kyshtymova

As visual technology development, more and more people use websites and social media as a platform of marketing. I create an account for my dog to both keep the memories and let more people see his daily interesting poses. In this case, my friends will think my dog like a human, higher-level pets instead of just seeing it like an animal. Same with selling the products, as a Shiba-lover, I collect every product that includes cute Shiba icon.

Why people buy animal products for themselves?

Like what I have mentioned above, every single person has their preference. Let’s take the example with mugs on the website, there are a bunch of different animal’s styles. People will like to purchase the kind of animal they own or feeling cute. About why animals make people feel better than objects, click to see the page. Through social media of the animal accounts, people who follow them are mostly animal-lovers, and they tend to buy from those ads. Boom! Business succeed.

Hence, many companies create every kind of products in different kind of animals, size of pets and products like phone case, bottle holder, stickers and so on to let their owner want to purchase. People who own business targets on how people love their pets to get the animal products market. These are for human’s visual satisfaction.

Compared with other animals, dogs are more often to be used in the ads since they have better relationships with humans. From Ads in Which Animals Speak Better Than Humans, "Indeed, four of the top 10 television commercials in 1988 listed by Video Storyboard Tests featured dogs, promoting Bud Light, Stroh's, Diet Pepsi and 7-Up". The article also mentioned the companies try to use the animal's personality to create advertisements which it is clever to use the strategies.

Additionally, the relationship between animals/owner and costumers.

Why people create account for their animal?

Here are the reasons:

1. Keep the memories

2. Encounter more people

3. Earn money (such as advertising)

4. Create their own brand by getting famous

In our perspective, by creating the personality for them, make them more like human-being(like celebrities), the audience tends to "like" them or interact more with them on social media. Becoming a pet influencer owner makes people feel success. However, as they getting more and more famous, the original meaning might have changed to business. For instance, spending too much on pet's accessory and decorate them are hiding the innocent they have. These are also the point owners need to know the balance.

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Citations:

“Ads in Which Animals Speak Better Than Humans.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Apr. 1989.https://www.huichawaii.org/assets/stone_sherril_the_psychology_of_using_animals_in_advertising_ahs2014.pdf

Irina M. Kyshtymova. “Psychological Analysis of Media Text: The Animal Image in Advertising Narratives.” Российский Психологический Журнал, vol. 15, no. 3, 2018, pp. 209–228.