According to Nielsen/Net Ratings Web traffic to pet related sites grew 115% in March with 19.5 million people visiting websites about the food recall.  "Pet food recall" was the most popular pet food search term with 1.4 million search queries in March.  This tells me and others in the pet business that consumers rely on websites because the web is one of the fastest means for a large number of people to access information. 

Another stat that astonished me was "visitors age 55 and older saw the largest increase in unique audience composition percent among pet-related Web sites, growing 5.3 percentage points from 20.7 percent of the audience roll-up in February to 26.0 percent in March. "  I know that many pet owners are in their retirement years and many are very computer savvy but that type of growth in a certain age group is astounding. 

According to Michael Pond, media analyst "businesses are leveraging their online presence to communicate directly with customers and re-establish trust after a crisis. This is especially important for companies that rely on brand recognition and brand loyalty; for them, engaging consumers in an online conversation is a critical step in recovering from a serious misstep."  This is so true, not just on the web, but being able to deal with consumers and regain their trust in your products is very difficult to do especially when a family member is affected by a certain product being sold.  Consumers are not the same as they used to be and they certainly are not naive.  People can and will shop around for a brand that they trust, and if companies are willing to admit fault then consumers are more than likely to remain loyal if they are satisfied that they have been given an honest answer.