A surge in pet adoptions and sales during the pandemic has increased the number of pet owners in the Detroit area to 1,872,507, according to Nielsen.

As a result, the amount of money that will be spent in Southeast Michigan during 2021 on domestic dogs, cats, birds, ferrets, and other cuddly creatures will achieve a record-high $1.5 billion. These figures are based on recent forecasts from The American Pet Products Association (APPA),

“We have reached a critical milestone in 2020, generating $103.6 billion in sales [in the U.S.],” said Steve King, President, and CEO of APPA. “We are bullish for the coming year, projecting growth of 5.8% - well above the historical average of 3 to 4%."

Detroit pet owners will be spending in four ways:

1. Food & Treats which includes everything from canned and bagged food to biscuits and chewies.
2. Veterinary Care and Product Sales which includes routine veterinary care, surgical procedures, and sales of pharmaceuticals and other products through veterinary clinics
3. Supplies, Live Animals, and Over-The-Counter Medications which, in addition to dogs and cats. includes fish, birds, small animals, and reptiles. This also includes cages, food and water bowls, as well as leashes and collars.  OTC includes medications for allergy relief, gastric distress, and oral hygiene.
4. Other includes services such as boarding, grooming, and pet sitting.

To capture a significant share of the local pet economy, local business owners who provide these four types of goods and services will need to advertise.  By almost any marketing metric, the best way to reach pet owners is by advertising on Detroit radio.

There are 864,537 millennials in the Detroit area.  The oldest of them turn 40 this year. According to The Pew Research Center, millennials comprise the generation of Americans born between 1981 and 1996.

As a consumer group, millennials account for an outsized percentage of retail spending. This generation represents 24.6% of the Detroit area population but almost one-third of metro-area sales. 

All in, Detroit millennials are expected to ring up more than $27.3 billion in purchases during 2021.  You name it, millennials are planning to buy it.

According to Nielsen, over the next 12 months, Detroit millennials will show up in huge numbers at auto dealerships, furniture stores, mattress stores, appliance stores, home improvement stores, and scores of other area retailers and service providers.

Every week, according to Nielsen, 84% of adult consumers tune in to a Detroit radio station. This is significantly more people than watch broadcast TV, local cable, or video streaming services. It's more than use social media sites like Facebook or Instagram.  And, it's more than read local newspapers.

Detroit radio is also the medium with the greatest reach among millennials, a generation that not only has embraced an abundance of online media options but also accounts for nearly a third of all local consumer spending.

This reach advantage is a crucial reason why Southeast Michigan small business owners depend on Detroit radio to market their goods and services.

A study released this week by Edison Research and NPR discovered that their six distinct types of radio listeners. The study also examines how each group of listeners engages with both programming and advertising.  These distinctions are important for Detroit small business owners to understand.

The six listener categories as described in the study are:

Now is a crucial time for Metro Detroit small business owners to advertise.  

According to the Conference Board, consumer confidence has surged to 110, the highest it has been since the onset of the pandemic last March.  The index has bounced back from a low of 89.6 in February. 

Moving forward, Southeast Michigan business owners can expect buyer optimism to remind high.

“The recovery in consumer confidence is set to continue in the coming months, buoyed by the combination of improving health conditions and wider vaccine distribution,” said Lydia Boussour, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “This should support hearty consumer spending and pave the way for a mini-boom in economic activity this spring and summer.”

As Detroit consumers gain confidence, they are expected to unleash the record $17.9-billion in personal savings amassed during the pandemic. This number is based on figures reported by Barron's in November. 

This combination of consumer confidence and the cache of cash-on-hand has led the National Retail Federation (NRF) to forecast a 7% increase in retail spending in 2021 versus last year.

To claim a significant share of the expected spending tsunami, Detroit business owners plan to boost advertising investments this year.

According to Borrell Associates, a company that tracks advertising trends across the country, Detroit business owners are expected to spend $2-billion to advertise the goods and services they sell. This represents an 8.0% increase versus last year.

Detroit consumers are expected to spend nearly 7% more at retail in 2021 than in 2020. This forecast is based on recently released data from the National Retail Federation.

To lay claim to a significant share of growing consumer spending, Southeast Michigan retailers will need to advertise.

“Think you have a great product?” asks the US Small Administration. “Unfortunately, no one’s going to know about it unless you advertise.”   

“Advertising, if done correctly, can do wonders for your product sales, and you know what that means: more revenue and more success for your business."

Scientifically speaking, the fastest way a marketing message can reach the areas of a Detroit consumer's brain responsible for purchase decisions is through the ear.  That's why audio advertising can be far more potent than visual messaging.

In 1920, when WWJ became the first radio station in Southeast Michigan, many considered the medium a fad.  Even in 1937, a hit song by George Gershwin, Our Love Is Here To Stay, considered radio to be a "passing fancy and in time may go".

Detroit radio, however, has survived the advent of talking-movies, television, eight tracks, and cassettes in stereo.  More recently, radio has withstood a tsunami of digital options including, YouTube, SiriusXM, Pandora, and Spotify.

As the Coronavirus pandemic rolls over into a second year, Detroit radio has hung tough and not ceded its ground despite listener's shifting lifestyles.  This is crucial news for local small business owners who depend on local stations to market their goods and services.

Each week, according to Nielsen, 62.5% of Southeast Michigan consumers watch video programs that aren't delivered over-the-air by local TV stations.  They aren't coming from a local cable company or by satellite.  Instead, these programs are being streamed directly to viewers via an internet connection.

This type of streamed video content is called OTT (Over-The-Top-Television) or CTV (Connected-Television). These two terms are sometimes are often used interchangeably but do have a subtle difference.

OTT generally means the video is watched on a small device like a computer, tablet, or smartphone.  CTV, on the other hand, typically means the content is viewed on a smart-TV or a regular television using a streaming device like a Roku or Amazon stick.

In Metro Detroit, OTT/CTV has exceeded the weekly reach of local newspapers and streaming audio services such as Pandora and Spotify. The medium is rapidly approaching the reach of local cable and broadcast TV stations.

Southeast Michigan residents will begin receiving economic stimulus checks  from the Internal Revenue Service as early as today.  In all, local consumers will receive more than $5.5 billion in payments.

This infusion of cash into the Metro Detroit economy was authorized by Congress last week in the American Rescue Plan legislation. 

The stimulus relief legislation calls for a one-time payment of $1,400 to single adults. Married couples who filed jointly will receive $2,800 total ($1,400 apiece). Families will get an additional $1,400 for each eligible dependent regardless of age. A family of four could get $5,600 in total payments. Like the second round of stimulus payments, the third round specifically prohibits payments to anyone who died before January 1, 2020.

Many of the stimulus dollars will end up in the wallets of 1.1 million Detroit area homeowners. Based on research from Modernize, a leader in the home improvement and home services industry, 57% of these consumers are planning to spend all or part of their checks on home improvement projects.

There are 1,818,900 adult women in Southeast Michigan. Based on research from the Harvard Business Review, as a consumer group, females account for 70-80 percent of all consumer purchasing through a combination of their buying power and influence.  According to Nielsen, this will amount to between $57.9 billion and $66.2 billion this year.

Overall, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Census Bureau:

• Single women across all income brackets spend, on average, $34,817 on goods and service
• Working married women contribute over a third of their families’ incomes
• Over a quarter (29.4%) of wives earned more than their husbands in 2018, an increase from 15.9% in 1981.

Furthermore, according to research published by Forbes:

• The top homebuyers after married couples are single women (18%, double the percentage for single men at 9%).
• Women are 50% more likely than men to regularly watch online how-to videos.
• 94% of women between the ages of 15-35 spend over an hour per day shopping online.
• 70% of travel consumers are women.
• 85% of women say that if they like a brand, they will remain loyal to it.

For Metro Detroit small business owners to successfully capture a meaningful share of the local female economy requires advertising.

Detroit's first radio station, WWJ-AM, began broadcasting on September 15, 1920.  The process of getting the station's programming from the studio into the home of local listeners required tall-transmitting towers with miles of underground copper wire in the middle of massive fields.

For the next 73 years, this massive investment in real estate, steel, and cooper was the only method of delivering a radio advertiser's message into the ears of Southeast Michigan consumers.

In 1993, however, new technology permitted Metro Detroit radio stations to augment the reach of their tall towers by simultaneously streaming its over-the-air programming via the internet. This provided local consumers with the choice of listening to their favorite stations on their car radios, clock radios, and boom boxes or on an internet connected devices like computers, smartphones, or tablets.

Today, based on estimates from Edison Research, 11% of listening to local radio stations occurs on a streaming media device.  The ability for AM/FM to migrate from their tall towers to internet streaming allows Detroit radio to reach more local consumers every week than all other media.