Settling the design brief for a new dog treat

The question

In dog treats, a product either keeps a dog’s attention or it doesn’t. Getting the format wrong would commit manufacturing investment to something real dogs might reject.

So before locking the design of its new treat, the company wanted to know whether the lead prototype deserved confidence, how it compared with what dogs already get, and what the brief should specify.

Our approach

We took the test into real homes, where treats are actually given, for long enough to see past the first taste.

The new prototype went beside established treats already on the market, each size-matched to the dog, with the order rotated so neither novelty nor fatigue skewed the read.

Owners recorded each treat at the moments that matter, from opening the pack to the feeding itself and a considered view afterward, capturing how the dog took to it and what that looked like from across the kitchen.

Focus groups then put the prototypes, the products already on the market and mocked-up design variations in front of owners, turning what they had seen at home into terms a development team could specify.

What the team came away with

Innovation leadership had evidence from real homes and design guidance for the development brief, covering the treat’s form and the experience it should deliver.

Owners’ responses to the written concept came with it, so the product and the story told about it could be developed together.