The Business Question:

Camp Bow Wow (CBW), a leading dog daycare and boarding franchise, began exploring a rebrand to better align with evolving consumer expectations, strengthen its market positioning, and differentiate itself from increasing competition in the pet care industry.  

CBW needed to understand the competitive landscape better to identify whitespace they could move into and best practices they could adopt.

Then, to guide their impending rebrand, they also wanted to dig deeper into their customers’ needs and emotional associations.

With a better understanding of the industry and their customers, they could ensure their new marketing strategy would truly resonate. 

The Approach: 

MDRG proposed a competitive analysis followed by a 5-day online community of current Camp Bow Wow and competitor dog daycare customers, incorporating an emotional laddering technique aimed at uncovering deep emotional insights to build a robust brand platform. This method established a deep understanding of both the doggy daycare industry and its customers. 

We began with a competitive analysis to:   

• Identify competitor claims and positioning   

• Review and conduct a comparative evaluation of competitor marketing initiatives   

• Audit Camp Bow Wow’s positioning and product articulation relative to competitor claims   

• Identify current and emerging marketing trends   

• Determine white spaces where Camp Bow Wow could differentiate   

The Methodology:

MDRG used internal and external data sources like Camp Bow Wow’s existing research, news, and industry publications, and competitor marketing materials to identify white space and points of differentiation.  

Once MDRG’s brand strategist thoroughly mapped the competitive landscape, CBW needed to determine how to best position its brand in a way that was differentiated and resonated with potential customers.

In short, they needed to better understand the emotional underpinnings of owners’ relationships with their dogs. These higher-order emotional inputs were the foundation to guide Camp Bow Wow’s brand refinement strategy.   

The online community incorporated a laddering technique: a series of OMET exercises with probing that seeks to prompt respondents to delve deeply into the emotions at play when interacting with brands and making decisions. 

Beyond emotional benefits, laddering leads to a self-expressive benefit. The point of laddering is to understand surface metaphors that exist alongside the deep metaphors that will lead to these emotionally rich territories, which brands can message and operationalize around. 

Laddering drills down to the exact metaphor consumers are circling to create an emotional foundation for a powerful rebrand.

What Did We Deliver?

The competitive review brief included: 

• List of competitor claims, positioning, and product articulation   

• List of current and emerging market trends   

• Contrast and evaluation of Camp Bow Wow’s claims and positionings relative to competitors   

• SWOT analysis to understand current strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities  

• Recommendations to guide changes and refinements for articulation of brand positioning, product structure, and marketing communications  

The competitive review informed the second study, which included the emotional laddering exercise.

The qualitative research complemented the competitive analysis by adding the voice of the consumer and the emotional underpinnings of their relationships with their dogs, as well as their experiences leaving them at a doggy daycare.  

Our final report elaborated on the emotional associations people have with doggy daycare, along with recommendations on how to best reach potential customers, resonate with them emotionally, and better position Camp Bow Wow to be a leader in the category.

What Did We Learn?

We found that the bond between dogs and their owners is strengthened through trust, confidence, and shared moments of joy. ​​

Safety, freedom, love, fun, and happiness play crucial roles in deepening the connection between dogs and their owners, fulfilling these fundamental needs.​

Dog owners wanted a doggy daycare experience that helped deepen their bonds with their dogs by using a service that evoked positive emotions and experiences they could share with their pets. 

How Did It All Come Together?

Introducing Camp Bow Wow’s new brand:

CBW used this research tap into the emotional connections owners have with their dogs and launch their new branding: Joy Lives Here.

What Now?

As CBW prepared to launch its new brand, we designed a brand tracking study to establish a benchmark measurement of brand performance.

This research provides foundational insights into how target consumers perceived Camp Bow Wow before the rebrand, enabling CBW’s marketing team to evaluate the new branding’s impact and effectiveness over time. 

The brand tracker will be repeated every two years to:

• Assess brand awareness, consideration, and loyalty.
• Benchmark consumer perceptions of Camp Bow Wow against those of competitors in the dog daycare market.
• Explore the relationship between brand attributes and key drivers of choice among pet owners. ​