Bas van Koll
About Me
The dog treats category is rapidly growing and innovating with healthy treats made of natural ingredients. For Milk-Bone, to launch new products that speak to the brand's strategy of Heart, Body, and Mind, re-imagining and rebranding their online presence helps shift the perception from just a biscuits brand to a dog treats brand for every moment.
Heart
Every day treating occasions to express love
Body
Ways to look after a pet's health & wellness
Mind
Purposely keep a pet entertained and engaged.
For dog parents to consider the Milk-Bone brand, the brand needs to show up in their search in relevant ways and show what Milk-Bone offers beyond cookies. Dog parents are searching with colloquial terms like "dog treats." By understanding the words they use, Milk-Bone can show up with relevant landing pages and product pages. And by knowing what matters to dog parents like treat flavors, dogs' life stage, size, and health the brand will show up in pet parent's online searches.
Milk-Bone is both a biscuit and offering a portfolio of products, which causes some confusion among dog parents. Exposing relevant product categories at the top of the main navigation immediately shows the brand's product offering. And by using non-branded categorical terms instead of product brand names, the information architecture brings familiarity and clarity. Dog parents can use relevant filters like treat size, dog age, dog size, diet, and flavors to identify the right product for their dog.
Pet parents see dog ownership as a lifestyle and philosophy they eagerly embrace. When it comes to finding treats, dog parents care about wellness and safety. Milk-Bone is set out to embrace the dog owner's lifestyle with more empathy and fun through community, personalization, and relevant content.
The brand positioning around Heart, Body, and Mind demonstrates Milk-Bone's commitment to safe ingredients and increasing the concept of "healthy" across the site. , which helps build brand trust and affinity among dog parents when it comes to their dog wellness.
Dog parents will take any occasion to do something special or fun with their dog. Milk-Bone plays into to the fun of giving. With Custom Box, dog parents can design a special treats box. By designing a seamless customization and e-commerce experience, dog parents have reasons to engage with the brand more often, which creates brand affinity.
Milk-Bone continues to innovate in the dog treats space to appeal to dog parents' interest in flavors and healthy dog treats. To celebrate their existing and future sub-brands, Milk-Bone shows product innovation with visually rich brand category landing pages that tell the product innovation story and elaborate for customers to learn why they are different.
To align the Milk-Bone brand's visual language across packaging, advertising, and social Milk-Bone's web presence takes inspiration from its packaging designs. The bold use of red color, organic graphic shapes, and stylistic imagery of products and dogs on color backgrounds give the brand a fresh look with the rethought site experience.
Smucker's is a well-established consumer packaging goods company with a portfolio of brands in the consumer, coffee, and pet categories. For their top-performing brands, the web presence has been rethought. Preparing for direct to consumer e-commerce, uncovering value beyond product information that the brands can bring, to evolving their brand identity. Milk-bone is one of the brands among others like Natural Balance Smucker's, Jif, Café Bustelo, and 1850 that will develop their web presence.
