How to Build Trusted Brands

Jacqueline Prehogan, BCom’07, knows what really resonates with people. And animals too! She helms two of the hottest pet businesses in Canada after all.

The first, Canada Pooch, which Prehogan founded in 2011, makes and sells functional (and pretty doggone adorable) apparel and accessories for chic canines. The second, Open Farm, which she’s run alongside her husband Isaac Langleben since 2014, manufactures ethically sourced premium dog and cat food. They’re two of the fastest-growing consumer brands in Canada, each of which has earned enviable trust and loyalty.

Steering two pet-focused brands was not on Prehogan’s radar when she graduated from Smith School of Business with a bachelor’s degree in commerce. She didn’t even have plans to become an entrepreneur. While she’d been involved in the Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship club (now known as Enactus) during her undergrad, she was working as an accountant and had enrolled in law school when her idea — to develop a pet apparel brand — took hold and wouldn’t leave. A few weeks, some prototypes and a whole lot of pavement-pounding later, it became clear: Her future was in paws, not law. 

In her roles as CEO at Canada Pooch and chief brand officer at Open Farm, she guides and drives the companies’ strategic brand focus. Being a brand-builder is another identifier Prehogan wouldn’t have given herself back in the day, but as she started to see her vision connect with Canada Pooch — and later Open Farm — customers, she realized she had a real knack for it. “I really didn’t think I was creative,” she says. “Only being thrown into it did I realize that I actually have a ton of creativity. It just took working on the right thing, with the right people, to unlock it.”

In this conversation with Smith Business Insight contributor Deborah Aarts, Prehogan shares a bit of what’s involved in capturing audience attention, cultivating true trust and building successful brands at a time when buyers have never been better informed and have never had more choice.

The concept of a “brand” can feel a bit nebulous. What does it mean to you?

 To me, it is a simple idea: Your brand is the feeling you create. Things like logos and colours and taglines are part of it, but those things evolve and change over time. The feeling that you give your audience tied to its reason for being and the value that delivers to consumers — that’s what ultimately drives a brand. 

How does that manifest in your businesses?

Both brands have a similar consumer and are focused on delivering unmatched quality and industry-leading innovation, but there are key differences.

Canada Pooch aims to support the experience of pet parents and their pets by making things seamless. We create products that help people solve some of the day-to-day challenges dog moms and dads face. The brand is function-forward, it’s innovative and it’s approachable. We’re providing innovative solutions.

Our mission at Open Farm is to do some good for animals and the planet, and since the business produces food, it’s all about trust. Our customers need to trust that our food is being made to the highest standards. We’re obsessed with it; we’re always working to be a change-maker in what we do inside our four walls and to continue the ripple effect of good through our supply chain. The brand is mission driven, caring, open and honest. We’re providing peace of mind.

You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into this. What sparked that passion?

The early days of Canada Pooch taught me that your brand is ultimately the secret sauce of what you do. You can work so hard and make the best product, but it can still be commoditized if there’s no way for consumers to recognize it. A good brand serves as a moat around what you do; it’s a lot more difficult to carve out a space for yourself if you don’t have one.

When we started Open Farm we decided to really invest in both brands, to build up trust and love with consumers through everything we do. And it kind of snowballed from there.

You operate in an industry that is both extremely competitive and growing fast. How does an upstart brand make a mark in a context like that?

I think it starts with differentiation. Fundamentally, what value is your brand adding?

Take our experiences with Open Farm. Pet food is a very saturated industry, with big players with deep pockets. There’s also a lot of what we think of as ‘me too’ products (copycats, essentially) and marketing fluff. When we were starting, most people in the industry told us, ‘Don’t even try. You can’t break in.’

We decided that our brand exists to create the healthiest food for pets — food that’s going to help them thrive. We do that in our own special way, which is all about maintaining the highest standards; we really go to the ends of the earth to source the best ingredients. That’s how our brand adds value and it’s how we differentiate it. 

How do you impart something like that to new customers? You only have a tiny window to catch their attention and there’s not a lot of room for nuance in an Instagram ad or on a product label.

You need to get good at introducing yourself to the consumer. You need to really know yourself as a brand — what you stand for, what you do and what you have to offer — and you need to be able to convey that. From there, put yourself in the shoes of your customer: Think about what makes them tick and what they need to see to believe that you can support their unique needs.

Pet parents just want to enjoy their pets, and that isn’t always easy. For instance, feeding pets can be confusing, depending on the age, activity level, health and the likes and dislikes of the animal. We see our role as giving pet parents peace of mind. When they choose Open Farm they know we’ve obsessed over every standard, every ingredient, every recipe, because we’ve communicated that in a way that’s easy for them to understand and — critically — because our product delivers on it. They can rest easy because they know they’re feeding their pet the best.

Does it help that, as a pet parent yourself, you are your audience? 

Oh, my gosh, yes. Everything I’ve ever done in this industry is inspired by my own pets. You can look at research, you can bring in all the external knowledge in the world, but there is no substitute for applying your own experience.

Almost everyone on our team is obsessed with dogs and cats. If they don’t have pets themselves, someone in their family does. We have dogs and cats in both company offices every single day, doing everything from fitting or taste testing our products, to marketing and photography, to just hanging out. So, yes, we are fully immersed in pet life. It’s a blast and it also inspires our ideas.

How does that immersion translate to brand loyalty among your customers?

We work hard to make it clear that we are supporting each pet and pet parent on their entire journey and that we know that journey can evolve.

Also, we never sit back and coast. Ever. Both businesses maintain the mindset that we need to re-earn our spot feeding and clothing each pet every day. I think the downfall of a lot of brands comes from getting disconnected from that drive. You can start to think ‘We’re successful as is, we don’t need to work as hard.’ We’re kind of the opposite. We keep trying to raise the bar.