Brand Building: Creative Strategies To Wake You Up

Casper CXO on Brand Building That Counts (Part 3)

These days, everyone is moving fast. Even our daily work tasks are structured into sprints. Still, every quarter at Casper – we take time to go broad, not straight. We take ‘dream days’ which let us explore beyond our day-to-day roadmap. For this creative brand building exercise, no idea is too small, large, good or bad, and we’re not afraid to have fun. These dream days aren’t problem oriented. Instead, they are open-ended, democratic and cross team. 

One dream day result was a day to night website transition that changes the color and brightness of the site since people shop at night. It’s always bedtime somewhere, right?

For example, we’ve also brainstormed about how to improve the sensory experience around sleep. Music playing pillows, scent diffusers, and temperature regulated concepts were all considered. The final result was Glow, our interactive, intuitive light that dims gradually to help you sleep. 

In brand building, operating with creativity requires the following:

• Carve out time, at least once a quarter, to go really broad.
• Make, don’t just think about ideas. If it’s too wild, it’s not tangible.
• Have fun. It typically correlates with good.

Model Cultural Listening

Cultural listening includes seeking and curating design inspiration stories. The practice should:

• Encourage dialog about what’s happening outside of tech.
• Make it safe to share anything. Nothing is irrelevant.
• Hire cultural listeners. Not everyone can do this.

Inspiration comes from listening to culture and constantly looking around. Try to look much broader than your competitors. It’s important to look into many industries and sectors, and team leaders must embrace this practice. 

Why Creative Brand Building Matters

For us, at Casper, our brand matters because sleep (or lack of it) has become a global problem. Only 38 percent of people say they get enough sleep each night. Sleep is cultural, technical, scientific and highly emotional. People don’t invest in sleep because everyone is telling you what to do about it. 

In order to tackle this design problem, we needed a transformative brand – not just a functional solution. People should want to sleep, not just need it. We’ve enlisted engineers, designers and user research tools, but we also employ joy, humanity, wonder and zing. We leverage creative brand inspiration through every part of our process to express these values provocatively in every customer touchpoint.

And it’s working! We feel we are changing the conversation and making an impact. Ultimately, it’s not just that sleep should be considered important. Instead, it should be magnetic. 

Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 2