Forget pop culture. Pup culture, anyone?
Halo Collar, a brand founded in 2018 with direct-to-consumer origins, went to market with its high-tech dog collars during the COVID-19 pandemic, when pet adoptions spiked nationwide.
The brand’s collars track a dog’s location and movements with GPS technology. Dog owners can also calibrate “virtual fences” on the collars that attempt to limit how far a dog can venture from an area before the collar creates a physical sensation meant to mimic a tap on the shoulder. (No, these aren’t shock collars.) Dog owners who purchase a collar also buy a subscription plan for access to the mobile app, where they can personalize the settings.
Halo Collar has grown between 35 and 40% over the past few years in terms of annual revenue and is spending nearly 30% of its revenue on marketing, CMO Seth Solomons told AdExchanger. “We think [growth] will accelerate with retail expansion,” he said.
Currently, the brand’s products are in Scheels store locations and 50 PetSmart locations. Next year, Halo Collar expects to have products in more than 2,000 stores.
In the meantime, the company is honing its marketing approach with a focus on first-party data and incrementality measurement.
Solomons spoke with AdExchanger about how Halo Collar is monetizing its consumer data while preparing for its retail expansion.
AdExchanger: How is Halo Collar’s marketing strategy evolving ahead of the brand’s retail expansion?
SETH SOLOMONS: We position Halo Collar as a premium lifestyle brand to capture the essence of the brand mission to help dog owners give their pets freedom and safety in their day-to-day lives.
Our collars also use advanced technology that makes them expensive. The average cost of our collars hovers around $500, so we expected that most of our customers would be particularly affluent. But in reality, we found that the average annual household income of our consumer base is around $86,000. This tells us…