Dog Brand Tracker

Dog Brand Tracker: Market Research

Sector: Consumer

Location: Norfolk

Website: https://www.naturesmenu.co.uk/

The Research Project

Natures Menu commissioned Mackman Research to evaluate the impact of its brand refresh and marketing activities. The project aimed to generate insights that would help track consumer perceptions over time, measure the effectiveness of campaign messaging, and benchmark the brand’s market position for future tracking exercises.

Dog Brand Tracking Results

Over a two-week period, 500 UK dog owners participated in a national quantitative survey panel. These participants were key household decision-makers when it came to pet food purchases, and represented a broad demographic spread in terms of age, gender, and lifestyle. The survey gathered both closed-question data and qualitative feedback, capturing participant attitudes, behaviours, and levels of brand awareness.

The Client

Natures Menu was established in 1981 in Norfolk, starting life as a small family business with a focus on natural pet food. They offer an extensive range of raw and natural pet foods for both cats and dogs, ensuring that their recipes are nutritionally balanced and locally sourced. Natures Menu has a wide range of employees, from a dedicated customer service team to registered veterinarians. Their welfare and quality standards comply with DEFRA approved micro-biological testing and raw material traceability so that pet owners can be sure that their cat or dog is eating only the best food available.

Brand Facts

• Based in Snetterton, Norfolk, Natures Menu is a well-established cat and dog food manufacturer founded in 1981.
• Within the Natures Menu brand portfolio are Country Hunter and True Instinct, both of which contain a high proportion of quality meat.
• Their refrigerated pet food delivery service is a particular selling point for those who feed their pets a raw diet, in addition to their focus on quality processes and ingredients.
• Natures Menu products form part of a balanced, healthy diet for cats and dogs thanks to their in-house team of veterinarians and pet nutritionists.

Research Aims & Objectives

Natures Menu wanted to implement a brand tracking programme that would evaluate the effectiveness of recent marketing activities and individual campaigns. The findings needed to deliver a clear understanding of market positioning, and establish a baseline for future evaluation.

The Research Challenge

Early fielding criteria meant that fewer panel members qualified to take part in the survey. Because of this data collection took a little longer than anticipated. The respondent ‘type’ required had to fulfil a specific buying behaviour and this proved to narrow the field somewhat. To overcome the reduction in respondent ‘type’ we slightly loosened some of the remaining and less crucial quotas. This allowed the last few surveys to be completed whilst maintaining the pre-requisites. 

The Research Design & Methodology

Mackman Research designed a bespoke panel survey in partnership with Kantar, targeting a national sample of dog owners responsible for purchasing pet food. The questionnaire explored feeding approaches, brand recognition, and campaign awareness through a mix of closed and open questions. Responses were gathered online, with each participant invited to provide both selected and free-text responses. This blend of quantitative and qualitative data allowed for rich, contextual insights to support robust brand analysis.

Research Outcomes

We analysed the panel data, which consisted of 500 individual replies. Each completed survey contained mostly closed-question responses with a few open questions to allow for unprompted feedback. We produced a detailed report to illustrate the findings in a visual format, along with verbatim answers from participants, which were organised according to theme and frequency.

As well as providing brand positioning and brand awareness, the panel survey also detailed other crucial consumer behaviours. From the results, a clear picture of common buying patterns and attitudes towards dog feeding could be discerned. The data revealed a variety of nuances that affect both purchasing and feeding choices. In addition, pain points were identified that may act as either motivations or barriers to purchasing this brand of pet food.