Nest

Making a thermostat sexy

Services

Brand identity

Messaging

Web design

Packaging design

Retail display design

Advertising

When we say Squero understands the needs of an internal team because we started as an internal team, we mean this internal team. Three of Squero’s founding partners and many of the vendors we still collaborate with met at and were fundamentally shaped by our time at Nest.

Matteo was Nest’s first Creative Director and employee #20. Dina came along a few months later as lead writer, and then, as we entered brick and mortar, Alessio joined as head of retail design.

What made the Nest experience truly spectacular wasn’t just the design and marketing talent; it was how that talent was used.

Unlike anywhere else we had worked previously, storytelling, packaging, and merchandising were integral to Nest product development. Creative was not an afterthought–it was part of the core team, and a huge part of the customer experience.

Nest is where we learned that product and brand are the same thing. The story you tell about the product informs both product development and brand expression.

Our approach

‍Fight complacency

By showcasing Nest products in the home, we relentlessly highlighted the difference between our products and the universally ugly beige boxes that we’d all grown accustomed to.

Instill the virus of doubt

We didn’t just need to convince people ourproducts were pretty, we needed to convince them they were necessary. So we asked: How much money have you wasted heating an empty house? Did you know that thermostats control half your energy bill? Did you know smoke alarms expire? Did you know half the homes in the country have nonfunctional smoke alarms? Making people doubt their current solutions was a huge part of getting them to consider ours.

Change the vocabulary

We banned using the word “smart”. Instead, we opted for “thoughtful” as a descriptor, which implied intelligence but also a sensibility for anticipating needs, which stood in stark contrast with the “smart” gadgets of the past.