From Fortune 500 to start ups to private equity – I have had the privilege to work with some of world's leading brands to break down silos, push boundaries, and champion breakthrough ideas and experiences. Below are additional case studies.
SOLO BRANDS
Solo Brands, at the back of a global pandemic that reprogrammed the way we connect with each other, challenged us to invent their future by defining a 5-year product innovation pipeline.
With a commercial ambition to double their business by expanding presence in adjacent categories, we developed a set of consumer-led Growth Platforms to deliver incremental growth. We investigated Solo’s primary consumer, The Outdoor Hosts, to uncover potent insights and tension to deepen our understanding of what drives them, and what their unmet needs are.
We established a robust portfolio roadmap of 30+ consumer-validated product concepts, all falling under key strategic categories, to accelerate the growth of the business over the next decade.
IBM CONSULTING
With new senior leadership appointments, IBM Consulting ($19B revenue/yr) invested in new services and needed to reposition itself against competition.
After completing a competitive landscape analysis and evaluating brand tone, voice, and positioning, we led a cross-functional effort with IBM c-suite executives (CMO, Brand and Content, and Business lines) to define, clarify, and develop a global strategy + plan to communicate updated focus + internal workforce change pillars. In a short term around time, the positioning informed market facing assets and used at the tip of the spear to implement internal workforce transformation.
SAZERAC
Growth for the Fireball brand, and its consumers, had aged out the the brand was in need of a reboot. In an 11-week sprint, we completed a strategic situational assessment to uncover insights across the category, consumer, and competitive forces to arrive at the current state of business for the brand. Then, we shifted gears to re-define the brand role + north star, and used this momentum to outline a top-down commercially sized growth mission that articulated a clear innovation roadmap and implication for products, geography, positioning, channel, and activation.
JUVENESCENCE
Fighting the stereotypes of aging and decline, we articulated a category defining purpose for this research-based biotech startup captured as, “reimagine a lifetime”. After infusing this holistic strategy into their products, services, identity and business strategy, we developed a concept-to-product pipeline, translating their wealth of scientific research into multiple B2C products, with both consumables and an app currently live in market.
PNC WEALTH MANAGEMENT
Acquiring a new bank to join its wealth management business line, PNC sought to clarify is brand and proposition in an effort to crystalize its positioning and drive additional growth. In a cross-functional approach, we launched simultaneous workstreams to define and operationalize the client experience design beginning with deep research to understand pain-points and motivations for both wealth advisors and their clients. We then iterated on new service design models and aligned on breakthrough ideas that translated into signature touchpoints. Using the touchpoints as the foundation for the transformation, the business did a full pivot to communicate and execute the transformation, leveralign internal and external launch plans.
ONE MAIN FINANCIAL
With a portfolio of heritage products, Cadbury Dairy Milk faced a new challenge: how might you develop the ‘moment perfect’ CDM of the future by uncovering rich consumer insights and tensions for key CDM moments, defining a sharp core renovation brief, and developing a global bundle & proposition vision for launch in 2029 and beyond? Through a two-stage process, we leveraged research and syntheses to land on key consumer moments and motivations. From there, we mapped concepts to consumer growth and brought to life a set of updated products with stories and personas to build to a final global proposition, while working with agility, to test and co-create with key markets and gather BU buy-in along the way.
MARRIOTT VACATIONS
Marriott, a long term partner with Deloitte, approched the Applied Design team to take their MVW business line and leverage existing assets and reframe the future of the business. Together, we developed an innovation pipeline to drive top line growth by evaluating marketplace, understanding future capabilities, and using data to define targeted customer segments with new business value proposition for MVW. Then, after defining prioritized concepts, we led a cross-functional team (business readiness, product, and engineering) to design and develop proof of concept, user stories, and wireframes while outlining commercial plans for build, operation, and go-to-market plan. Finally, we collaborated with CEO and Chief Growth Officers to create briefing materials and sell-in final investment plan to c-suite and Board.
MONDALEZ - CADBURY DAIRY MILK
With a portfolio of heritage products, Cadbury Dairy Milk faced a new challenge: how might you develop the ‘moment perfect’ CDM of the future by uncovering rich consumer insights and tensions for key CDM moments, defining a sharp core renovation brief, and developing a global bundle & proposition vision for launch in 2029 and beyond? Through a two-stage process, we leveraged research and syntheses to land on key consumer moments and motivations. From there, we mapped concepts to consumer growth and brought to life a set of updated products with stories and personas to build to a final global proposition, while working with agility, to test and co-create with key markets and gather Business Unit buy-in along the way.
TOMTOM
tomtom had amassed map building capabilities and was interested in launching in the US. However, their brand was mostly known for the navigation units used in vehicles. Our job was to develop a set of strategic conclusions based on market primary and secondary research to understand their brand positioning in the U.S. Then we redeveloped their brand value proposition, outlined a new set of differentiators and established an updated story platform that acted as a launching pad for a large-scale activition, inclusive of creative concepts, paid media launch, and creative/programmatic execution.
MEQUILIBRIUM
meQuilibrium is a beloved brand in the employee wellness space.
At a moment of transformation for the category, we helped define and design an inspiring, purpose-led brand story to unlock future growth and galvanize internal teams as well as the market.
Together we defined a purpose, “Be a force for growth,” built a story platform and messaging around it, and produced a brand video that brings the purpose to life.