“A crazy thing”: Sarah earns thousands of euros per month thanks to her golden retriever

The daily life of April, a Canadian Eskimo cross, and Peter, an Australian shepherd, fascinates more than 20,000 subscribers on social networks. These animal influencers, some of whose publications have nearly a million views, were invited to promote Woofest, the biggest dog event of the year. “Are you happy my darling?”says Elise, their owner, filming the dogs jumping among plastic balls. In exchange for this invitation, Elise agreed to post a montage of her videos the same day.

Thanks to their notoriety, Peter and April have even become the faces of animal brands. “There, they’re buying two, getting one free, so I’m going to do a little story, and say ‘if you stop by the stand, you have this offer, now is the time to take advantage of it'”, she explains about a leash brand she has worked with for three years. Her most important collaboration: a mutual fund for animals, which allows Elise to insure her dogs free of charge for savings of 1,200 euros per year.

Rio, one of the most followed dogs in France

In France, there are 10,000 dog and cat accounts on social networks, a phenomenon that is examined in the report by “Sept à Huit” to see at the top of this article. Among them, only around fifteen influencers make a full living from it. This is the case of Sarah, a 31-year-old mother, who earns several thousand euros per month thanks to her dog. She works in particular with a discount brand, in order to promote its animal department. “I’ll take it in blue.”she says, grabbing a dog toy. “I film to show my selection. It shows that I really do it, that I really went looking for it, and that it was me who chose.” explains the influencer in front of the TF1 camera.

With 180,000 subscribers on Instagram and 550,000 on TikTok, Rio, her four-year-old golden retriever, is one of the most followed dogs in France on social networks. To benefit from its audience, brands are ready to pay up to 2,500 euros for three videos. Each publication requires Sarah around fifteen minutes of editing. “It happened to me that I was contacted by some fairly well-known brands for which I said to myself ‘maybe I should hire someone to help me film’. The brands told me ‘no, especially not. We want something natural, something funny as usual’. That’s what they expect from us.”assures the young woman.

Rio has become the face of around fifteen brands, some sometimes even having no connection with the animal. This is how a decoration brand furnished the entire house for free. “This is a robot vacuum cleaner. A brand offered me the product and they paid me. For them, it’s beneficial, in the sense that I will produce the requested content, and we can also see that every day when I film”, explains the influencer.

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However, when this marketing graduate opened accounts dedicated to Rio on social networks four years ago, the objective was not to make a business out of it. The thirty-year-old just wanted to share the puppy’s daily life with those around her. And we had to convince the latter. Today, her three-year-old son, Raphaël, and her husband Jérémie, a professional footballer, are also featured in the posts from Rio. But at first, the second was far from being seduced by the idea. “Jérémie is a footballer, so it was a bit, well, we’re not going to show our liferemembers Sarah. And then when it took off and there were the first contracts, he said to himself but in fact it’s something crazy, it’s incredible. And then, once it really became my activity, it became natural“. The whole family now benefits from the VIP status of its hairy star.

This trend of dog influencers has even given rise to a new profession: that of marketing agent specializing in animals. Lucas Bérullier’s agency, created seven years ago, today has ten employees. To his credit, dozens of marketing campaigns and events. “We did the preview of the film dog and cat. We had around fifty dogs and cats who came to watch the film in preview with the actors”says Lucas with a little smile. “We protected ourselves with little blankets, and we took bathroom breaks,” he confides.

Among the 3,000 animals present in its catalog, it also exclusively manages the careers of around fifteen of them. They are pampered like movie stars. This is the case of Choupette, the precious cat of the great German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. “I organized his 10th birthday at the Hôtel de Crillon. We had bodyguards to ensure his safety,” specifies the agent in the TF1 report above. To identify new influencer profiles, Lucas takes advantage of major dog events, such as Woofest.