Building a new dog-focused retail concept by turning expertise, trust and genuine care into a distinctive customer experience.
Category:
Brand Strategy & Retail Experience
Client:
Animania
Duration:
9 Months
Location:
Oslo, Norway
Pet retail is often shaped by discount logic, product volume and inconsistent perceptions of quality. Animania saw an opportunity to build something fundamentally different: a specialist destination grounded in knowledge, carefully selected products and genuine care for animals.
The challenge was to establish a clear reason to choose Animania beyond price or convenience—and translate that position into a credible brand and physical retail experience across 800 square metres and approximately 8,000 products.
I led the strategic and creative development from concept through implementation, defining what Animania should stand for before determining how it should look and feel.
Working closely with the founders, I translated decades of practical experience and commitment to animal wellbeing into a clear market position: expertise over volume, quality over bulk and guidance over transactions.
This direction shaped the target audience, value proposition, brand personality and visual identity. It also informed the physical experience through colour strategy, spatial consulting, layout principles, product hierarchy and in-store communication.
I provided creative direction across touchpoints and coordinated partners, suppliers and stakeholders to maintain strategic coherence as the concept moved from idea to finished environment.
The result was a distinctive, knowledge-led retail brand with a coherent experience across positioning, identity, communication and physical space.
Animania entered the market as more than a conventional pet shop: a specialist destination designed to build trust, make a large assortment easier to navigate and create stronger emotional connections with quality-conscious dog owners.
By connecting strategy and implementation from the beginning, the concept established a clear foundation for consistent decision-making and continued development—centred on value over volume.
800 m²
Retail environment
Purpose-built specialist destination
≈ 8,000
Product assortment
Products organised within one coherent retail experien
