Context Is Everything: What My Dog Taught Me About Selling a Sensory Product

This is Chomper.

He is a 20-month old yellow American Field Labrador Retriever. He is gentle, ridiculous, and deeply committed to playing ball. He is also, apparently, terrifying.

I know this because a woman sent me a social media DM saying, I believe completely sincerely — "He is absolutely terrifying."

I paused – not wanting to respond without thought. This is a puppy who sleeps in my bed with his head on my pillow (gross, I get it) next to his stuffed giraffe and begs for me to snuggle. Terrifying was the last thing on my radar.

So I responded, "Did you see the video?" 

She hadn't – that part of my story had expired. So I sent it to her. Within minutes, she said: "Oh my God. What an athlete."

Same dog. Same moment. Completely different reaction.

That is the definition of context. And, perhaps, the most important thing I've learned about building a brand.

The Photo vs. The Video

Here's what the photo shows: a dog mid-air, mouth open wide, eyes wild, teeth everywhere, catching a tennis ball over a swimming pool. Hilariously, it looks like a nature documentary about apex predators, and is the antithesis of Chomper, the lab.

Here's what the video shows: a joyful, bounding, completely unhinged Labrador puppy doing exactly what Labs were put on this earth to do — to play with his whole entire heart, chase a ball like the last time is the first time, stick the landing, and look extremely pleased with himself when he comes up for air.

The photo isn't wrong. The video isn't wrong. They're both true.

But one tells the whole story. And one absolutely does not.

Which brings me to candles.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to sell a sensory product in a visual world. About why the most beautiful photography and the most evocative copy still can't fully close the gap between seeing something and experiencing it.

A photograph of a Chez Shea candle can show you the vessel. It can show you the white wax and the wood wick and the way the flame catches. It can show you the room it lives in — the Palm Beach kitchen, the Southampton deck, the Nantucket windowsill.

But it cannot show you what happens when someone picks it up and smells it for the first time.

It cannot show you the woman at a popup who closed her eyes when she smelled Cold Snap and said that smells like the first day of winter. Or the man who said I need a Christmas gift for a client and grabbed Island Holiday. He smelled it and his eyes went wide with wonder, saying, "That smells like my childhood – how many do you have – I'll take them all."

Those moments are the video. The photo is everything that came before them.

Context Changes Everything

We live in a world that moves in sound bites and photos. Highly edited in squares and grids, thumbnails and feeds — all of it designed to make you have a reaction in less than a second.

And in that world, context is the first casualty — and in many instances, the biggest.

Chomper looks terrifying in a photo. He is a magnificent companion in person.
Caveat: he's still a puppy. We're working on it. 😄

Chez Shea looks beautiful on a screen. It smells extraordinary in real life.

The gap between the two isn't a failure of photography or copy or brand strategy. It's just the nature of the medium. Some things — the really good things — require more than a single frame to tell their story.

That's why I keep writing these blog posts. That's why I keep showing up at popups and markets and events. That's why I keep putting candles under people's noses and watching what happens when the context finally arrives.

Because the photo gets you curious. The experience gets you hooked.

And once you've smelled it — really smelled it — no photo required.

As for Chomper.

He is currently on the couch, watching the US Open and the tennis ball going back and forth over the net. He is also blissfully unaware of his brief career as a cautionary tale about context and branding. And, "Giffy" the Giraffe is enjoying the tennis too.

He would like you to know he is available for future brand consultations. Compensation in tennis balls only.

🐾

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Come experience Chez Shea in person — follow along for popup dates and events.
Shop the collection at shop.chezsheacustom.com
Breathe In What You Love.