Soft Landing
Launching a DTC functional play brand
Nearly 20 years into its history, founder and CEO Peter Gainsley had built Animal Adventure into a leader in the plush toy category, with broad internal capabilities and distribution at most of the nation’s top mass retailers. However, the market was changing fast with brick & mortar retail struggling and a new generation of young parents looking differently at playtime and kids room décor. Animal Adventure hired Sheepdog to contemporize its marketing and help the company pivot toward new product forms and sales channels.
Sheepdog led qualitative research with millennial parents, revealing opportunities for “crossover” toys that did more than one thing, compared to stuffed animals that are quickly forgotten and relegated to the closet. Some of the company’s products like this were already showing promise on Amazon and at retail. Sheepdog briefed Animal Adventure’s designers and engaged a talented design agency with experience in children’s brands to create a new brand, voice and creative assets including packaging, sales collateral and video content. A new brand architecture organized legacy and new products in a way that made sense to buyers and business partners.
Soft Landing was born as a character-based collection of soft goods that grow with the family, combining creativity and purpose. The line quickly expanded into six product formats that have injected big momentum as the company attacks its next 20 years.
"We engaged Sheepdog to help us more effectively target the millennial parents who are becoming a big part of our market for the first time. David organized our first formal consumer research and then led the development of Soft Landing, a sub-brand for a new line that is key to our future. He raised our marketing game across the board and really helped drive innovation in our company."
- Peter Gainsley, CEO
