CEO & Owner, Aller Petfood Group A/S
PFF 2018 Henriete Bylling Interview
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About Henriette Bylling
Henriette Bylling, CEO and owner of Aller Petfood, discussed transparency and marketing in the pet food industry during a 2018 interview for Pet Food for MTV. Bylling said that pet food companies should be less focused on sales-driven marketing and instead share knowledge with consumers, even if it makes the industry vulnerable. She stated, "I think also we should be less selfish as brands. We shouldn't always share information and make marketing with the sole purpose of sales, sales, sales. We should also share knowledge." Bylling also emphasized the importance of honesty, advising companies to "say what you do and do what you say." Bylling noted that consumers now gather information from online sources and may not always verify its accuracy, so the trade industry should help balance that information to allow for informed choices. She drew a parallel to a mink farm that invited visitors to see its operations, suggesting pet food companies should not hide reality. Bylling added that geographic borders do not limit the spread of information online, so issues affecting the industry are global. She encouraged consumers to be critical of information and urged the trade to provide open, honest answers rather than marketing soundbites.
Transcript (11 segments)
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Kristen Levine0:06
Hi and welcome back to Pet Food for MTV. I'm your host Kristen Levine, and I am joined by Henriette Bylling. She's the CEO of Aller Petfood Group. Welcome, Henriette. Thank you. So, let's talk more about transparency. Why is it so important for pet food companies to be transparent with the consumer?
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Henriette Bylling0:31
For years, when choosing super premium and premium pet food, consumers have always had a big need for gaining and collecting information because this type of product has a complex decision-making process. However, before the internet, there were limited sources to gather this information. This has changed now, but also the mentality of the consumer has changed. They are less critical of the source of information; they go online, ask friend Google, and do not really relate to whether the information they're receiving is correct, biased, or absolutely false. So, I believe we as a trade need to be able to balance out the information on the internet so they can gain an insight into what's actually going on and thereby be able to make an informed choice. Right, because they're going to multiple locations to get that information, including the brand website. Yes, yes. I think also we should be less selfish as brands. We shouldn't always share information and make marketing with the sole purpose of sales, sales, sales. We should also share knowledge. And yes, I understand it makes it vulnerable. We have to open up for the top-secret information; it is a bit scary, but still, it's important because if we do not open up for it and they find out in other ways, they are losing trust in us. And I say 'us' not in us as a company but potentially in the whole trade.
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Kristen Levine2:16
Besides sharing that information, educational information, can you give one or two other specific marketing tips for pet companies?
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Henriette Bylling2:26
I think the biggest one is: say what you do and do what you say. I like that. That's probably all you need to say, right? Yeah, yeah. We don't need more tips than that. It's really you don't want the consumer to find out; you want to be able to say it. And I think yesterday during my presentation I used an example from the mink trade in Denmark. I was driving in the rural countryside and all of a sudden by the side of the road, by a farm, there was a sign saying, 'Please do come in and see my mink farm.' And this is meat production for clothes. And if we think we have a stigma in our trade, they have it too. So, driving along, I'm pondering, okay, what does this actually mean? Because they are coming in to see mink in small cages and so on, but they're not trying to hide reality. And that's what I think we can learn. We shouldn't try and hide reality, if reality cannot always be sugar-coated, and that's what we have to admit to.
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Kristen Levine3:34
So, our pet food – you make and sell pet food in Europe, and so I'm curious to know if the consumers in Europe, how do their expectations of pet food differ from other regions of the world?
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Henriette Bylling3:45
We have it a bit easier because we have not had the challenge of the negative claims in the same way as the US has. So, there's much more, much less stigma in relation to ingredients and so on. It doesn't mean that I say, 'Okay, it's an American problem, I don't worry about it.' That's very far from the truth because these informations are online, and they are clever people blogging and so on. And if they're better than us as a trade at blogging, at social media and search engine optimization, so on, their blogs can go viral. And the World Wide Web is exactly that – it's worldwide, so we cannot put geographic borders on it.
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Kristen Levine4:39
What about advice for consumers that are doing their research and selecting a diet for their pet, whether they're changing their pet's diet or maybe they just adopted or gotten a new pet?
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Henriette Bylling4:49
I think there's still lacking information that is transparent. We have started to do it, but it's still early days, and hopefully, I'm on a mission. I want more people from the pet trade to join this mission. But the best thing the consumer can do is to be critical of the information, and I think we then as the trade should welcome the pet parent asking us questions and give an open and honest response, not a marketing soundbite.
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Kristen Levine5:28
Right, yes. Well, I think that's a great place to leave it. Henriette, thank you so much for the information and for your presentation this year. And we'll see you back next year. It's been an absolute pleasure.
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Henriette Bylling5:37
It's been an absolute pleasure, and I will be more than happy to be back.
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Kristen Levine5:41
Excellent. All right, and we'll be back with more right here on Pet Food for MTV.