Defining new growth pathways for a beloved brand

Challenge

How can Chewy move beyond e-commerce to become an iconic brand in its own right?

Context

Purpose: Amplify the power of pets to connect people

Chewy came to us as an 8 year old startup that had become the leader in pet e-commerce, outstripping Amazon. In the lead up to their 2019 IPO, they wanted to define their next growth pathway, and ready their brand for further expansion.

This included an expansion of their customer base by engaging a younger generation of pet parents – an audience that understand the powerful role pets play in connecting us to the world around us.

Our work together over the years has spanned a range of engagements and projects – all in service of amplifying the power of pets to connect people.

Action

Making the world more Chewy

We defined their purpose, positioning and identity, and since then have been their ongoing brand advisor – helping them build a brand that’s beloved by customers and employees alike.

Brand story: Building from quant and qual research, we created a refreshed mission, guiding everything the organization does
Action principles: We laid out simple principles to guide how Chewy acts in the world
Brand architecture: We developed a brand architecture structure that builds undiluted equity in the Chewy brand, and allows for easy navigation across its products and offerings
Portfolio strategy: We helped Chewy’s proprietary brands team develop a portfolio strategy to refine current offerings and develop net new products and brands.
Visual identity: We refreshed the brand’s identity to speak to a younger audience and emphasize connection and playfulness.
Tone of voice: We created an ownable TOV and messaging toolkit to inform how Chewy speaks
Brand campaign: We created an external campaign with content and comms to bring our purpose to life
Content strategy: We created content pillars and an e-magazine that brought them to life

In the years since the strategy was finalized, we’ve continued to find new ways to embed the purpose into the Chewy business. We’ve partnered to development new proprietary brands that bring the purpose to life in new categories. We’ve also continued to refine the brand architecture to ensure that all the magic throughout the Chewy ecosystem is coming to life in service of the Chewy purpose.

Story platform and tone of voice

We developed a clear story platform, action principles to guide how Chewy acts in the world. We then translated them into a comprehensive messaging and tone of voice toolkit to empower their teams to deliver consistency with freedom.

Architecture and new offerings

In addition to the story, messaging and tone of voice, we also defined the owned brand architecture, and concepted new brands for Chewy.

Visual Identity

We partnered with Athletics to refresh the brand’s identity to speak to a younger audience and emphasize connection and playfulness.

Impact

Since our partnership began, Chewy has doubled revenues to $8B

Reached 20M users in 2021, a 200% increase