Vetty: Launching a brand that’s more than fluff
Subscription businesses have been all the rage in the States for some time, and with more and more hitting our shores in recent years, we’re starting to see some really cool brands emerge in the subscription space. One that we’ve loved working with? Vetty.
Launched by David Walker and veterinarian Leon Christensen near the beginning of December 2018, Vetty was born from a realisation that pet health is often easily forgotten.
“I wanted to do something in the ecommerce space, and always thought that a subscription model was a great business model,” shares David.
“We started looking at pet food but after mulling it over we realised that pets need to be treated for fleas and worms at least four times a year – and everyone seems to forget when they’re due!”
After “mucking around” with free apps for a bit, David quickly realised that if they were going to build a website they wanted to do it justice in regards to clean, tidy, professional design. “Our biggest asset is our website, so we needed to nail it.”
Although they already had a web person on board, they needed a designer to create their brand – and were quickly referred to Tonia.
Finding out what’s im-paw-tent
“We employed Tonia to create a brand from scratch – we didn’t give her too much of an idea,” says David. “Pet owners are a really mixed bunch and most people seem to have a family pet so we wanted a brand that would appeal to all of them – cool but also fluffy!”
With David based in New Plymouth and Tonia up in Auckland, meetings needed to take place online. Following a couple of catch ups over Skype, Tonia created a brief to confirm what Vetty were looking for – and then got started on concepts.
“They were completely original – it was a good mix of designs across the spectrum, from complicated designs that we’d like to use in the future but weren’t quite right now to really simple designs like a heart.”
After a tough decision making process, the Vetty team finally settled on one of the original designs – and they couldn’t be happier.
“Tonia did a very good job for us. It’s all about getting the brand and the website right – ours is simple but effective. People have commented on the design and told us it looks really cool.”
However, David does recommend making sure that your web developer knows how to then harness a brand to create a strong website. “Because we had a different web designer, we had to push to get that looking great. It’s important for the brand to be reflected on the website.”
Becoming a doggone success
With their professional brand assisting to drive their bespoke user-centric website, the business has grown from strength to strength becoming New Zealand's leading pet health subscriptions service.
A good part of that success has been a simple and effective brand which has been integrated seamlessly through the website design. “The brand really encompasses who we are. It's clean, professional, and memorable, helping to give us much needed credibility in the competitive ecommerce space.”
As Vetty continues to grow they intend on keeping their brand platform the central focus to ensure they maintain their leadership position in Pet Health.
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