As Design Lead on the founding team at Whistle, I created a fresh brand in a seasoned industry. Our initial product, the Whistle Activity Monitor, focused on keeping pets healthy by monitoring their daily activity goals and was part of a growing IOT movement.
Our brand attracted an exceptionally dedicated community of dog lovers, and our active user stats consistently reflected high customer engagement levels (~65% continued checking the app daily after 90 days). A few months after our initial launch, we closed distribution deals with Amazon and PetSmart, and soon launched Whistle GPS, and sold more units in pre-orders (~75,000) than our main competitor, Tagg, had accumulated in total customers (~50,000).
In 2014, Whistle was acquired by Mars Petcare.
Upon joining the company, I had just 2 months to prepare for our initial launch.
We had a name, a logo, and a prototype of the physical device, but we needed literally everything else—website, storefront, content strategy, photography, packaging, app design, promotional materials, social media strategy, and press page.
Everyone agreed we didn’t want to be like every other pet brand on the market (i.e. no dogs catching frisbees in mid-air), but we hadn’t yet articulated what we did want to be. We also didn’t yet know what our core feature set would be.
Creating the Whistle brand
From the outset, we chose to focus on the next generation of pet owners who care more about their pet’s overall happiness than about health and safety alone.
Launching WhistleGPS
During our first year in the market, we were selling units on Amazon, and our product was being prominently featured at PetSmart retail locations nationwide. However, despite an enthusiastic core user base, sales were beginning to slow. Activity tracking alone just wasn’t resonating with the larger pet market the way we’d hoped. The business needed more revenue to sustain itself, so we started exploring options for adding pet location-tracking as a service.
When we kicked off the WhistleGPS campaign, we weren’t sure what the final product would look like or how big it would be. In fact, adding a GPS antenna without making a device too large or too heavy for a dog’s collar would be the team’s biggest challenge to date. However, we also had to move fast to meet our proof of concept deadline for Series B funding. To add to the challenge, there were already some established brands to compete with, the largest of which being Tagg with approximately 50,000 monthly subscribers.
My team was given 3 weeks to launch a crowdfunding campaign. In that time, I lead us in developing a new product name, writing and producing a commercial, coordinating the accompanying photography, and creating a website with a strongly resonant differentiation message—worry less, adventure more.
Ultimately, our WhistleGPS campaign was so successful, it earned us more pre-orders (~70,000) than our main competitor had in total customers (~50,000), secured our next round of funding, and even fueled our acquisition of Tagg just a few months later.
Director: Mimi Cave
DoP: Devin Whetstone
EP: Josh Goldstein
Producers: Dave Hebenstreit, Tova Dann, Matt Tucker
Editor: Blake Bogosian, Beast
Mix: Joaby Deal, One Union
Colorist: Chris Martin, Spy
.svg)
.svg)
