Cats, Kibble, and Cable TV

Background and Goal

You were hired by PROSPEROUS PETS, a small regional chain of boutique pet care stores. PROSPEROUS PETS focuses on serving dog and cat owners for all of their pet needs, including: pet sitting, pet training, grooming, toys, and food. PROSPEROUS PETS tends to serve customers who consider their dogs and cats "surrogate children," and, in turn, are willing to spend top dollar on quality services and products.

PROSPEROUS PETS is preparing to launch its first television advertising campaign. The top management team has whittled the list of cable channels to potentially advertise on down to 11. Your task is to analyze additional information about the viewers of these 11 stations and come up with a short list of cable channels that you believe will be best for PROSPEROUS PETS. To aid you in your task, management handed you three reports generated from GfK's Media Mark Report tool. The first report deals with the quantity of pets owned by viewers of each channel, the second report deals with the types of pet services used by channel viewers, and the final report is about where people buy their pet food.

The Data

The data in each of the three reports can be interpreted in a similar manner.

- The (mils) column is the estimated number (in millions) of people or U.S. households who exhibited the target behavior in the row and column. For example, 15.1 million U.S. adults report watching the cable channel AMC as well as own 1 dog.
- The Vertical % column is the estimated % of all people in a column who watch the channel reported in the table's row. For example, of all people who own 1 dog, 23.8% of them also report watching AMC.
- The Horizontal % column is the estimated % of all people in a row who also exhibit the behavior reported in the table's column. For example, of all people who watch AMC, 29.7% of them own 1 dog.

These three pieces of information can be informative on their own. However, they can also be used to calculate other useful metrics.

Task 1: Understanding the Data

Use the information provided in Table 1 to answer the following questions:
1. If someone owns a dog, what is the % chance they watch Fox News? What if they own a cat?

2. Which channel is much more likely to be watched by someone with 4 or more dogs than an average American? What is the INDEX value for this channel? An INDEX value of 100 is the benchmark for an average American adult to have 4 or more dogs.

3. Which channel is much LESS likely to be watched by someone with 4 or more cats than compared to an average American? What is the INDEX value?

4. If we wanted to reach the absolute most 2 to 3 dog owning households by advertising on only a single cable channel, which channel would we pick?

5. Based on these results, is it fair to say that Animal Planet watchers are more likely to own either a cat or dog compared to the national average?

6. Regardless of the number of dogs or cats someone owns (including zero!), about how many U.S. adults in total said they watch the Cooking Channel?

Use the information provided in Table 2 to answer the following questions:
1. Your friend assumed that Animal Planet is the best channel for finding pet owners who use pet services frequently. Does your data support or contradict her belief? Why?
Use the information provided in Table 3 to answer the following questions:
1. Assuming people only buy from one of the three options, how many people in total bought their pet food from a discount store, a pet specialty store, or directly from their veterinarian? What % of this total bought from their veterinarian?
2. Which cable channel had viewers with the largest % of their pet food shopping done at a veteranarian?
Discussion and Debate:
1. Based only on the information provided, which 3 cable channels would you recommend as the best choices for promoting the business? Which 3 cable channels do you think are the poorest fit?
2. What other additional information would you like to have so that you could make a more informed recommendation? Why is it important? How could you find out this information?
3. If PROSPEROUS PETS told you that its services were much more profitable than its product (toys, food, etc.) sales, would that change your recommendation? Why or why not?

TABLE 1: Pet Ownership and Cable Channel Viewing

TABLE 2: Pet Service Usage and Cable Channel Viewing

TABLE 3: Pet Food Buying and Cable Channel Viewing