PlayAbly Podcast Episode 21: Gamifying Growth – How Playfield Created a Viral DTC Brand with Engagement & Community

In this episode of the Playably Podcast, we sit down with Ivana, founder of Playfield, the pet accessories brand behind the viral Bailey Kit. We dive into her journey from Google to launching a DTC brand, the challenges of bootstrapping, and how she’s building a community-driven brand with playful, engaging experiences.

We also discuss the Playfield x PlayAbly partnership and how we worked together to create a gamified advent calendar—a fresh take on customer engagement that brought Playfield's brand to life. Check out the case study here.

🔹 Try the Playfield Advent Calendar Demo → Click here
🔹 Learn more about PlayAbly’s gamified experiences → Visit PlayAbly
🔹 Explore our Countdown Calendar for brands → Discover more

From interactive campaigns to fostering brand loyalty, this episode is packed with insights for any founder looking to stand out in today’s competitive eCommerce landscape.

🎧 Tune in now!

Welcome to the PlayAbly Podcast, where we dive into the art and science of gamification, customer engagement, and driving conversions. 

At PlayAbly, we turn passive audiences into active customers through shoppable games and playable experiences that transform how brands connect with their customers. Book your free demo here.

Thanks for tuning in to the PlayAbly Podcast! Ready to engage your customers like never before? PlayAbly creates branded Shoppable Games that drive results. Don’t forget, mention the podcast during your free demo, and get $500 off (book here). Learn more at playably.ai

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Transcript

PlayAbly Podcast Episode 21: Gamifying Growth – How Playfield Created a Viral DTC Brand with Engagement & Community

Kajal: [00:00:00] We're back with a special episode of the playably podcast We are interviewing Ivana has created the brand Playfields, which you may know from our recent case study we'll link it in the description, I wanted to talk to her because she is an amazing founder of DDC brand, 

Ivana, welcome to the show. 

Ivana: Yeah, thanks for having me. Excited to be here and happy new year. 

Kajal: Happy new year. I'd love for you to start with some background about your journey to founding Playfield. What inspired you to launch a DTC brand? 

Ivana: I have always wanted to launch a consumer brand.

I spent eight years at Google, helping consumer brands grow. I realized I wanted to have one of my own it wasn't until we brought Bailey our now four year old dog that I realized there was a gap in the market , just blending form and function with products that were also high quality.

I set out to create something of my own found an immediate need. [00:01:00] carrying all my essentials whenever I go out with Bailey, which is at least three to four times a day, I felt there wasn't a good solution That looked great was multifunctional in the way that I wanted 

And so that was the impetus for me to create the Bailey kit aptly named after Bailey, It's now gone viral on Instagram and been featured in Vogue, which we're super excited about. that's kind of our starting product and our foray into the pet space. And we hope to grow a lot more from there.

Kajal: As a pet owner, I really love. The kit, the colors are just so cute Otherwise it's like, Oh, here's black or really ugly color of blue or red. 

Ivana: Yes, exactly. give me the neutral colors. Give me the fun colors. give me colors. I would actually want to wear.

Kajal: Yeah. And I can, it spills into the branding as anyone can see from your Instagram or the website. It just has a very distinct look to it that you feel . How did you come up with that branding? 

Ivana: I think it started [00:02:00] with what mood we wanted to convey. And it stems from the name as well, Playfield. I wanted to create just a world of joy, a world of fun. And to me, that's synonymous with bright colors and really bold colors. personally not super into pastels, wanted to be a lot more expressive in what we were putting out there.

strong inspiration from flower fields, and slowly but surely the play field world came 

Kajal: I love it. . How has that evolved since you started? 

Ivana: I think it has evolved to some degree, we had a specific vision but it's been fine tuned and we recognize that where we fit in the space now is by creating human centric accessories for dog lovers.

we're not making leashes, we're not making collars, we blend fashion lifestyle and pet. And that's space that we operate in. 

Kajal: what challenges did you face as a first time founder?

Ivana: in the [00:03:00] beginning having never created something physical before, there was a steep learning curve, understanding how you find a manufacturer, how you communicate with them, what they need from a tech sheet perspective, and figuring out how build a website, make sure things are working on the back end.

even to this day, we're still a one woman show. It's completely bootstrapped. at this point in time, but hopefully not for much longer, I do everything including customer service, fulfillment, social media. it's often a lot feeling like you can be stretched thin, but also feeling like perhaps you're not the best and shouldn't be the best at everything.

at some point would love to bring on some pros to take things off my plate. 

Kajal: Looks like you're headed in that direction, and hopefully Playably is helping you get there speaking of which we had the five day advent calendar together Angelo was the one that really brought that to us, and I'd love, Angelo, for you to explain about that project.

Angelo: [00:04:00] Yeah, so Ivana and I have known each other for a while through mutual I didn't go to UCLA, but my friend group is like 90 percent UCLA. So I met Ivana through friends of friends and I've known that she was starting this brand. initially when we were working on landing pages, we had talked and we've always been looking for a way that we could work together because brand is really fun.

And as a founder, it's always nice to pick people you want to work with. working with friends is always fun. because your branding is so playful we're like, this is a perfect match for a game. I'm so glad that you're game to try out the advent calendar. I know you had mentioned, well, in the future, there might be a physical advent calendar.

Ivana: Oh yeah, I hope so. I personally just love advent calendars, so super excited to see that you guys are making them too, even in a digital format. But yes, hopefully in the future we can do a physical advent calendar. I've always wanted to get my hands on the Liberty London one, that's kind of beauty product focused.

They always sell out every year, but maybe this year. I'll have some luck. 

Angelo: Nice. Well, next year when you have the physical one, we'll be there to make your digital one as well. we call it the engagement calendar. The purpose was that each day there was a different [00:05:00] game.

each game was different and unique, but suited for the brand. we had a lot of fun making your game. we were at a conference and I was showing them the dog quiz everybody loves that and they're like, yeah, my dog is a charmer.

 And so when the brand is fun and the product is inherently fun, and people care about it, we can do a lot 

Kajal: I totally agree. And I saw a lot of comments about people thinking it was like super fun and super cute. I think that the illustrations on it were great. But Ivana, you also did daily posts to support the Abbott calendar launch and really encourage people to play. 

Ivana: we're an early stage business. a lot of our efforts are focused on top of funnel awareness. consistency with posting on social media is critical to get the word out tell people that we exist, show them how we're different.

I loved that we were able to do the digital advent calendar even for a business of our size and ones that are even larger, this is not something you see that often, it's a novel concept. I had received several DMs from customers saying fun. I love that doing it.

There's no real kind of like, I think at face value, it's like, wow, [00:06:00] it's so fun to do things just for the sake of it being fun. Obviously, we know there's a component which we'll touch on the gamification of things and how that helps move people along the customer journey. But when you're coming onto the website and you're playing with the admin calendar, it's just a fun experience.

And it's really nice when brands are able to offer that to their customers. 

Angelo: I remember when we were talking about the planning for it, you have to keep telling people to do it, that's like sending an email, you have to keep peppering them, I think the great thing about the games is that, once we got them on the website, we got people playing it's so hard to get people to do anything.

But the fact that we're able to get them to fill out a quiz, pack for a dog walk, complete the maze, and pick which colors they want to see next. The fact that we're able to do this sort of engagement in this age where people have very low attention spans, shows that, we're onto something.

Ivana: I think that you see on social media now is getting more traction. But yeah, to your point, attention is such a limited and valuable currency and it's just hard to get people to pay attention to anything more than three seconds, right? And so I think [00:07:00] any way that you can remove friction helps. 

Kajal: diving into the games, I think that each one, as Angela said, Was fun. And then you're collecting feedback and data from your customers. What was the experience of game design like? What was that process for you? And that's for both of you, 

Ivana: Angela, do you want to go first? 

Angelo: Seema should've been honored. Seema's our game designer, and she working closely with Devon. We had an initial meeting where we brainstormed different ideas, Seema has 25 years of experience in game design.

 we can see it in the final product. But you worked with Ivana once you figured out, what the games were. And then we just got the assets from you. Thankfully your branding is so great.

And you have so much stuff to work with the assets that you shared with us that it made, putting the game together, pretty easy, I think, on our end. What were your thoughts? you were the first ones that we built the calendar for. 

Ivana: I love that the entire experience was very collaborative.

It was a lot of ping pong ideas and exploring what routes we could take and just trying to figure out okay, how do we balance delivering delight and joy, but [00:08:00] also delivering games where we might be able to get more insights from our customer, right? figuring out what colors they prefer or how they take their dogs out for walks, 

Useful qualitative insights, but still doing so in a fun maze or a fun matching game. So yeah, it was a really great experience. 

Kajal: were you ever concerned the games wouldn't represent the brand well? 

Ivana: I think we were gonna be able to do it together. I think it's helpful that we had strong assets.

it was also very clear that no matter how we do this. it needs to be colorful, it needs to be punchy, and the team totally delivered on it. they took what we had and ran with it and delivered some really cool animations as well, which I was super excited to see. 

Kajal: when you got the results back from the Calendar launch and the five days were out. Were there any metrics or feedback that stood out to you from your customers

Ivana: yeah, I didn't know what to expect since this is our first time doing something like this. we're [00:09:00] still really new brand.

We're not even a year into business. So I felt like, maybe our email lists are going to be kind of small. I don't know if anyone's actually going to play all five days, but to my surprise people did, they were consistent and they came back every day. They were excited for the new challenges every day.

they would send me DMS just sharing how much they delighted in the experience. So I was very pleasantly surprised. 

Angelo: I just thought we're working with another brand who they want to do kind of like a similar calendar, but for a birthday, so we could definitely repurpose when is Payfield's first birthday?

We could do like an anniversary countdown tape. 

Ivana: Oh, come on! April. 

April 4th, 

Angelo: does it feel like a year? Does it feel longer? It probably feels longer. 

Ivana: It feels longer but it also feels like it hasn't been quite a year because there's so much I want to do in the first year I'm like no, I still need these couple months to hit those milestones before I can call it a year.

Kajal: you're marketing the whole time you're doing customer service, you're, planning everything out for the brand. How do you separate your time? 

Ivana: I think I'm completely [00:10:00] disorganized. I would love a better system.

I've tried everything. I've tried notion project planners, but I find that keeping that organized its own job. So now I keep it simple. have a word doc where I dump all the things I need to do, then get that sorted into what's actually going to drive meaningful impact in a measurable way.

and what's urgent versus the whole, matrix of urgent and important, definitely prioritize that. I'm overly optimistic about what I can accomplish in a day. So I often punt things down the week. Calendar blocking is a big way I think about my days.

I'm trying a new thing where I dedicate a full day to one specific type of task. if it's Content creation or social media work, dedicate a day to that. then product development is a whole other day. Sometimes attention gets pulled, you get an important DM or a customer support email you have to pack orders as well.

So it does get difficult, but I'm hoping that as we grow, I can develop [00:11:00] better discipline around that. 

Kajal: Actually, with everything that you're doing, it's so left brain and right brain. most people usually end up in one way or the other. It sounds like you're really great at the organization part and the business part.

how do you stay creative and ensure that, the messaging always resonates with your audience and you come up with new ideas? 

Ivana: it's a fine balance of, trying not to copy what's out there. It can be very tempting, especially on social, when you see, that video performed or that brand is popping off.

if it's not natural to your inherent brand, it's good to distance yourself. I actually have a post it on my monitor. says focus on your lane, keep it simple, silly, make magic happen.

But yeah, I think on creative days, I actually like to leave the house. So I go to a coffee shop next door. I think changing the environment is really important. I'm still looking for ways to incorporate inspiration from other industries, like interior design or in fashion, [00:12:00] kind of seeing what's happening there and not focusing too exclusively on pets.

trying to broaden the horizon, that's how I find I get more creative inspiration. 

Angelo: Really liked your last video with the balls. 

Ivana: sometimes it's just ad hoc, content. 

Angelo: How does the ad hoc, perform? 

Ivana: Sometimes the thing you don't expect to perform actually does.

And then the thing you hope will perform doesn't. So that's why it's important to be consistent and just take more shots on goal. 

Angelo: Yeah, have you found because I'm doing the same thing with LinkedIn and my goal in February is to post every day except Friday because no one's there on Friday.

it's hard to tell what content will resonate. You have an idea you put it out there and then there's no views. Just keeping lots of shots on goal. Have you noticed any patterns of what has worked well or what content is resonating? 

Ivana: I think with our product, there's a big education piece, I need to demonstrate over and over again, what features are built into the product.

it's the hidden pockets. compartments. That really capture people's attention. that's when our videos get shared the most I'm [00:13:00] also noticing that as I bring more people into the fold I'm getting a lot of input from customers people within our community, which has been really helpful and insightful.

I want to dive into more of that. still balance some of the more polished content. 

Angelo: And then have you found most of your content on Instagram, TikTok, which channel has performed the best? 

Ivana: Yeah. So Instagram is definitely our channel.

I feel like we have a pretty tight community there. TikTok is really, I don't post consistently there, even though I should. my style's probably super millennial coded and it doesn't translate very well on TikTok, but seems to do okay on Instagram. I do want to diversify because it's pretty scary having dependence on a single platform.

hopefully for 2025, we can really double down on TikTok and YouTube shorts as well as grow our Instagram following. 

Angelo: Have you tried Pinterest? 

Ivana: Yeah, I think things automatically post to Pinterest. Our photoshoots have done decent on Pinterest. I think the editorial [00:14:00] shoots themselves have done well.

But we're doing a lot of videos these days and it's okay. It's not great. We get tiny traffic from Pinterest. Are 

Kajal: there any tools or software that you swear by when creating all the content, especially doing everything yourself? 

Ivana: I do a lot of it in app. I definitely use CapCut for editing.

If you know of any though, please share with me. I use Canva for creating things. But that's pretty much it. 

Kajal: So what is One lesson or takeaway that you have gained from using gamification. Is there anything that you, took away from it or you'd like to share with other founders who are looking into it?

Ivana: Yeah, so some context. I worked with a lot of gaming and app companies when I was at Google. I totally believe in and understand the importance of gamification. it's human nature, we like little rewards. It's the same way we're addicted to social media.

There's little dopamine hits and cycles. with gamification [00:15:00] specific to, what you do as a brand, it adds. a level of intrigue beyond, Hey, I'm selling a product, buy my product, it's nice to offer a different experience 

Angelo: was your favorite game out of the five 

Ivana: I really liked the maze, but I think it was also a little impossible. I don't know if anyone was able to make it through. It was like the hardest maze I've ever done. It was easy on desktop. 

Kajal: was doing it on desktop with the arrows 

Ivana: and it's so much easier to 

Kajal: do 

Ivana: I was like, oh my goodness, there's not enough time. 

Kajal: what has been the most challenging aspect for your coming up on a year running Playfield? what was the most surprising thing that you had to face?

Ivana: I think it's something I'm still working through, but trying to give myself grace in not comparing myself to competitor brands, not beating myself up for feeling like I'm not moving fast enough, or if I wasn't productive enough on a certain day, the productivity guilt compounds when you're a founder, Even last night, I had trouble [00:16:00] falling asleep because I had a burst of creative energy and all these ideas flowing through my head. So I think trying to draw healthier boundaries between work and life, also because I work from home, I cannot escape Playfield. And Playfield is me. But I definitely don't want to burn out. And I want to build a brand that is going to be sustainable, a brand that will be a profitable company. So I think managing that is something I would like to 

Kajal: I think not comparing yourself to competitors is a really good piece of advice, but how do you even do that?

Cause I know a lot of people will get wrapped up in, Oh, this person's launching this, or this person just did this, like, how do you make sure that you stay focused? 

Ivana: Yeah, so I try to just not even follow competitors on social media. I think that's one thing. And just being really clear with myself too, that we're different businesses, different goals, different paths.

[00:17:00] we're not. externally funded either. So there's just so many things that we cannot do at this point in time that it's not helpful to compare, but I think on the flip side, when we initially launched the company, it was such a different angle than what you were seeing within the pet space.

And that was just entrusting my internal intuition and following that specific vision that I think helped us quite a bit in the beginning and even now. So leaning into that more and knowing that being different and not being like others is actually going to help us succeed.

Kajal: Do you do any A B testing when you have a lot of ideas and you're trying to launch something with content, or are you just Trying to put as much as it out there and see if it hits with anything else with your brand, do you do testing or is it just go with the gut, commit and go with it?

Ivana: Yeah. So with the product in the beginning, I did a lot of focus groups. I don't know if you guys have read the mom test by Rob Fitzpatrick . That was so informative for me knowing how to conduct these focus groups, how to ask the right [00:18:00] questions and not bias answers.

in the beginning I did a lot of that, even with just a printed image of what I wanted to create. then I would get samples and shop around to strangers and friends of friends, people who were removed from me. So I wasn't getting confirmation bias.

That helped inform the product as we see it today. And as we, think about future product development, I apply the same principles where I want to get honest feedback. I try to get qualitative information so that I know what problems I'm solving for and I'm creating a solution for them. 

Kajal: what's next for Playfield? I know you have the anniversary coming up. Any other exciting plans or projects that you can share? 

Ivana: Yes, quite a few. we're launching new colorways, which I'm really excited about. And those will be coming out in spring, summer. I think we're also revisiting the size of the bag 

We've been asked to create a slightly larger one. I think we're in the middle of that. we're doing a lot of product collaboration for the summer fall as [00:19:00] well. I'll have more to share on that soon. as for 2025, we're trying to get into more retail.

we'll be at super zoo in August, big expo for the pet industry. It's our first time debuting at a trade show. I'm super excited about that. before we know the holidays will be here. hopefully we can make some headway on that physical advent calendar as well.

Kajal: And then just for anyone who's listening, that's a DTC founder, any advice that you have for them, if you could say one thing to somebody starting off on their first ecommerce venture, what would it be? 

Ivana: I would say brick by brick. Like you do not build something overnight and it takes time. especially in the beginning, it might feel really slow, but efforts snowball.

So just keep going at it, make your incremental progress, try to focus on being 1 percent better every day. before you know it, you'll be a lot further than where you started. 

Kajal: Thank you so much for joining us on the Playably [00:20:00] podcast. you can find Ivana and Playfield at ourplayfield.

com, both the website and their Instagram, so be sure to follow and check them out. Stay tuned for the next episode of the Playably podcast.