Human-centered design is one thing, but dog-centered design is something different entirely. It takes a rare breed (pun intended) to pull it off successfully. But, that is exactly the novel approach the startup retailer Bark has taken since its inception.
“Bark is the world’s most dog-centric company,“ Head of Brand and Marketing for Retail at Bark, Allison Stadd, said with an an audio wink and a smile in a recent podcast interview for Omni Talk.
Bark began in 2012, when its founders could not find any fun dog toys that they liked and created the BarkBox subscription service. Bark has unique content, its own e-commerce portal (BarkShop) and now has in store product placement across many retailers. At Bark, dogs come first and owners come second. It is a novel approach, one from which the industry can learn so much.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Bark's latest innovative idea – BarkPark. BarkPark is exactly what its name connotes. It is a dog park, but not just any dog park. It is a dog park built 100% for dogs. At BarkPark, dog owners do not take their dogs to the park. It is the dogs, themselves, who bring their owners along for the journey.
The above may sound crazy, but it is real—and brilliant.
Opened earlier this year and running until November 18, lucky dogs can visit Bark's first BarkPark in Nashville, Tennessee, and enjoy everything they love about being dogs, with other dogs. For either a daily fee, a four-week pass or a seasonal membership, dogs receive an exclusive enamel membership pin to wear with pride on their doggie collars, along with free guest passes for "one to two human friends of their choice" to come along as they frolic, four-legged, footloose and fancy-free at the park.
Dogs can run around, while dog owners can sit back and enjoy the things humans enjoy, like cups of coffee with their friends, beer tasting, stand up comedians, and other social events like movie watching, where the main features are, you guessed it, movies like Best in Show and Frankenweenie.
Every detail is incredibly thought out. Just look at this below photo from the park:
Instead of tables being affixed to the ground, table legs at BarkPark are bolted to ceilings, so dogs can run freely under tables and between human legs unfettered by pedestrian things, like normal, run-of-the-mill carpentry. It is a design choice simple in its brilliance, and one of which no one but a “dog-centric” company could conceive.
“There really was no third place for dogs,” Stadd said. Bark set out to create something unique to the needs of dogs and their owners.
Or, put another way, Bark gets it. Bark understands what physical spaces are all about—the social joy and memories of being somewhere and doing something, whether as humans or as furry animals. Starbucks may have the market cornered as the third place for individuals, but the market for the third place for dogs and their dog owners is a niche up for grabs.
As digital commerce grows more and more important every day, all that remains to differentiate physical commercial experiences from digital commercial experiences are the tactile and sensory joys of physical locations themselves. BarkPark, therefore, is not just the realization of Fido’s dreams brought to life, but also a microcosm of how retailers need to think differently.
Dog-centered design is not something cute or some marketing handle. It is a real way to think about how to manufacture new opportunities out of common problems. Dog owners frequently would stop to get coffee before taking their dogs for a walk. Now at BarkPark they can combine those actions into one and the same thing. The space itself creates a new space for community, a new almost town square for those that love the joy and companionship of other dogs and other dog lovers.
Similar outside-the-box thinking is needed to cure what ails retail right now. Yes, Amazon is coming, with its checkout-free, 4-star, etc. installations, but Amazon, despite all its data, does not know soul. Soul is the result of well-thought out artistic expression, the kind that puts legs on the ceiling and not on the ground. Leveraging human-centered, dog-centered or whatever-centered design is the key to unlocking the potential of physical spaces in ways never imagined.
People don’t need to go to stores or to parks for products anymore. They can get anything they want online at the press of a button. They want to go to places to live—to feel, to get inspired, and, most importantly, to get what they need to get done in a way that simplifies their lives and leaves them fulfilled.
What BarkPark shows is that retail is not only about the consumer but also about who and what else happens around the consumer. The park or the brand is the product, not the chew toys, even within the $86 billion pet industry. Retailers would be wise to take a page from this novel approach to design.
For one man’s dog is another man’s muse.
