ClueJay: Revolutionary for Pet Owners, Stress-Free For Pets

There are only a few things in the world that get people more excited than their pets… and the booming pet product & pet technology markets are proof positive.

But as any pet owner knows, no amount of chew toys can alleviate the stressed panting of a dog or cat headed to the vet—especially when something’s wrong.

Enter: ClueJay.

Poised to revolutionize the pet testing process by offering the first-to-market home testing kit designed for pets and their people. By bringing access to cutting-edge veterinary lab technology directly to consumers’ homes, ClueJay is solving the pet stress problem and giving pet owners unprecedented control over their pets’ health.

When we first connected with the ClueJay team, the concept was just that: an idea searching for a strong brand to support. We worked with ClueJay’s founders to build the brand from the ground-up — from finding a name and crafting the voice, to building the full brand system throughout ClueJay’s digital and physical presence.

Building a Brand

Plenty of us here at Altos are pet owners, and when the ClueJay team first approached us with this concept we knew it was a winner—but it needed a strong brand behind it to get started.

The challenge: crafting a visual and verbal brand to speak directly to multiple audiences. By analyzing thorough industry research, we identified key audiences as individual pet owners (consumers), small business owners (as potential resellers), and investors (to keep the brand growing).

We worked closely with the founders of ClueJay to build the brand from scratch, crafting a visual and verbal brand system to meet the needs of all these audiences, all while making a bold splash on an increasingly crowded pet product marketplace.

Verbal Branding

When telling a brand story—especially for a new brand just entering the market—language is critical. In the case of ClueJay, we knew we needed strong, bold, and distinctive verbal branding to make the brand not just memorable, but exciting and uniquely engaging.

Naming

From the very start of the branding process, this was a crucial piece of the puzzle to get right. Our branding team met this challenge by digging in deep to the naming process—complete with thorough competitor analysis, creative brainstorming, and thorough vetting by the founders and by industry experts.

We anchored all potential names to previously-identified foundational brand language, all of which ladder up to the core brand messaging: convenience, authenticity, and expertise. By paring down this initial list of name options, we eventually settled on just a few top competitors. After a thorough investigation of trademarks and domain availability, we knew we had one clear winner: “ClueJay.”

Voice

With a name chosen and the foundational brand language established, it was time for ClueJay to speak with its own unique voice. We crafted a robust bank of brand-aligned vocabulary to guide all ClueJay language moving forward, ensuring consistency between the physical product itself, our digital presence, and our marketing efforts.

Visual Branding

Language may be critical to building long-term brand trust, but visuals are crucial to making a fast first impression on audiences both online and on the shelves. We crafted a unique and memorable visual identity to support the ClueJay brand, all designed to reinforce the brand with one cohesive, consistent look.

A brand’s visual identity so much more than just its colors and fonts… although those may be the foundational elements we often think of. But it’s more than that: a visual identity brings all of these elements together in one cohesive whole, creating a full system that’s simple to recreate, but difficult to confuse with the competition.

Logo

The ClueJay logo combines several key visual and brand elements: a teardrop shape, to represent the chemical analysis offered by ClueJay’s veterinary lab technology; a mixture of brand colors, rto reinforce the overall brand identity; all coming together to form a distinct “ClueJay’ bird head, reminiscent of both the brand name and its place in the animal wellness market.

Color

ClueJay utilizes a trio of distinctive brand colors, each carefully chosen for both their unique hues and the way they combine to draw attention and guide actions.

Light blue reinforces trust throughout the brand, while bright pink offers a unique pop of highlight in instances where action is most-needed: Calls-To-Action and links throughout the website. Together, these colors create deep purple—comforting, confident, and unique among pet care products. Working in unison, these colors allow for powerful visual combinations to communicate expertise, offer a friendly brand for consumers, and influence action in both the physical world and through ClueJay’s digital presence.

Fonts

We knew that ClueJay had to walk a fine line between “authoritative experts” and “pet-friendly consumer brand.” To communicate this positioning, we chose Averta as the main brand font. Strong, sans serif, and easy to read, this distinctive font provides consumers little resistance toward reading more and engaging with the brand story.

Brand System

Inspired by the laboratory technology that ClueJay brings to consumers, we designed a brand system complete with graphical elements designed to succinctly support that positioning across all of ClueJay’s digital and physical footprint.

Utilizing graphical elements like test tubes, colored blobs (to evoke the sample and lab analysis process), check marks in “collar tag” shapes, and others, this brand system keeps ClueJay planted firmly in the pet world while quickly communicating a higher level of scientific expertise.

Packaging

As a direct-to-consumer product, we knew ClueJay needed to look as great on the shelf as it does online. That’s why our designers crafted a consumer-friendly package designed to both meet expectations on the shelves, while holding up to the elements as a durable shipping-ready package.

Print Collateral

As the ClueJay brand grows, so will its visibility… and that means trade shows, expos, and face-to-face marketing moving forward. To support this effort, we designed an array of print collateral to succinctly and beautifully communicate the ClueJay brand, bringing many of the same graphic and branding elements found online and on the package to these engaging B2B and B2C print assets.

Photoshoot

One of our favorite ideas for the ClueJay brand: the adorable brand ambassadors, dog Rious and cat Madeline. The ClueJay team enthusiastically supported bringing these furry faces into the mix as official ClueJay Brand Ambassadors, and so we helped guide a full photoshoot to show off their best sides.