AiMCO Awards: Princess Honeybelle proves cat videos continue to rule the internet

Dubbed the "Kim K" of the cat world, Princess Honeybelle has been the most talked-about influencer following the 2024 AiMCO Awards.

Last week the Australian Influencer Marketing Council (AiMCO) handed out its "best of the best" awards for the past 12 months, with Princess Honeybelle winning both the Best Family/Parenting/Pets Creator award and the overall Most Influential Creator award.

The awards were especially meaningful for Princess Honeybelle's owner, Nicole Wade, who said: "For us pet creators, it can be difficult getting recognition and being taken seriously in this industry. We are often overlooked and don’t get as many opportunities as other content creators in niches such as fashion, beauty, or lifestyle. I’m hoping that with these wins, it proves that pet creators deserve a chance and serve as an important (excuse me, ‘impawtant’) part of the content creation industry."

The Melbourne cat and her owner Nicole have grown their online following to more than 600,000 across Instagram and TikTok, with content such as Princess Honeybelle "cooking" and wearing adorable costumes. Her best platform is Instagram, with 365,000 followers.

On Instagram her audience is 64.52% women and mostly between 25-34. Princess Honeybelle has well and truly gone global, with most of her followers from the United States, Australia, Brazil and the United Kingdom.

Princess Honeybelle has also created sponsored content alongside brands such as Smart Box Litter.

In the wake of the win Wade posted on LinkedIn: "For us pet creators, especially those of us that don’t personally feature in our content, it can be difficult getting recognition and being taken seriously in this industry.

"A quick Google search shows that the Aussie pet industry in 2021 was worth more than $14 billion with over 29 million pets in 61% of Aussie households. There’s clear value in featuring pets in all types of campaigns, and not just ones that are pet product focused. (For example, we’ve worked with HelloFresh, Oatly, Ferrero Rocher, Oppo, LG, and AfterPay to name a few ‘non-pet’ products)."

Speaking after the awards, AiMCO managing director Patrick Whitnall said this year’s winners "represent the best of the best in the Australian influencer marketing landscape".

"Our judges had an incredibly tough job selecting winners from a record number of outstanding entries," Whitnall said. "Every year the calibre of nominations for our annual awards gets better and better – it reflects the momentum across the industry and the groundbreaking work our creator community is producing."