Consumer Goods

CASE STUDY

Premium Pet Food Brand

Reimagining growth for a premium pet food brand by expanding into new segments and channels, without compromising authenticity

Challenge

A fast-growing premium pet food brand had built strong loyalty in the natural and specialty retail space by offering high-quality, minimally processed products while cultivating emotional resonance with pet parents. Early success was driven by grassroots brand building, innovation and deep ties to independent retailers. 

As the category evolved, the brand faced an inflection point. To accelerate growth and reach new shoppers, it needed to scale without compromising the authenticity that made it distinct. It also had to compete across new channels, price tiers and consumer mindsets while maintaining relevance and trust.  

To chart its next chapter, the company partnered with Prophet to develop an insight-led growth strategy—one that would expand its market opportunity, sharpen audience relevance and create a roadmap for product development, innovation and brand-led expansion. 

Solution

Prophet led a national strategy engagement rooted in rigorous consumer and channel analysis. A custom segmentation revealed distinct pet parent mindsets, from ingredient purists to pragmatic health-seekers, and identified four key segments, including white-space audiences the brand had yet to reach. 

We mapped consumer needs related to the brand’s channel presence, examining the occasions, needs and priorities of different segments across channels ranging from specialty retail to digital and national chains. The analysis highlighted where it could grow credibly and protect its specialty equity. We then uncovered five high-potential demand spaces, tied to moments like clean feeding, targeted health and real food variety. For each, we defined the product, messaging, and distribution strategies needed to win. 

Finally, we delivered a portfolio roadmap and go-to-market framework covering pricing, innovation, and brand experience for each channel. The roadmap was designed to scale growth while preserving brand distinctiveness across channels and consumer touchpoints. 

Results

The brand is now equipped with a clear, adaptable strategy to grow across channels, reach new segments and expand into emerging demand territories—without losing its identity. 

The work unified internal teams around  strategic priorities to fuel product innovation, go-to-market focus and competitive differentiation. By combining deep insight with disciplined execution, the brand is positioned not just to grow, but to redefine leadership in premium pet nutrition. 

CASE STUDY

Consumer Goods Company

Unlocking growth with consumer insights and strategic opportunity mapping

Challenge

A global beverage company known for its innovation legacy identified a significant growth opportunity in the emerging legal cannabis market. With surging consumer interest and a shift away from traditional alcohol consumption, the company decided to pursue this adjacent, ownable space.  

While poised for growth, the market was highly fragmented and rapidly evolving with shifting customer dynamics and complex regulatory environments. To enter the space credibly and successfully, the company needed to identify the most valuable, winnable opportunities grounded in future-forward consumer insights and build a clear roadmap for action. 

The company turned to Prophet to conduct deep market analysis, uncover evolving customer behaviors across the category, and define the most relevant, ownable opportunity spaces with the goal of building a long-term foundation for differentiation in a fast-moving category

Solution

Prophet led a multi-phase engagement that combined deep-listening qualitative research, a robust quantitative study, cultural trend analysis, and category landscaping to create a holistic understanding of the needs and barriers of the cannabis consumers. This work informed a curated market landscape aligned with the company’s strengths. 

We began by mapping the full spectrum of cannabis engagement. Segmentation revealed six distinct consumer types, which we overlaid with the emotional and functional occasions to understand the drivers behind cannabis usage. 

Across these dimensions, Prophet built a demand landscape that identified opportunity spaces, each defined by the user motivations, behaviors, and product expectations, and were contextualized alongside the existing business demand spaces.  

To prioritize where the brand could play and win, we applied a strategic lens, evaluating each space for business attractiveness, consumer credibility and alignment with internal capabilities. Four high-potential opportunities emerged.  

For each, we developed detailed “how to win” profiles outlining target audiences, functional and emotional benefits, product design cues and messaging strategies. Scenario-based market sizing was applied to account for future shifts in regulation, consumer sentiment and category education. Throughout, we partnered closely with the company’s innovation leadership team to secure alignment and buy-in across the executive team. 

Results

Armed with a data-rich foundation and a consumer-led framework, the company is now well-positioned to enter the cannabis market with confidence and strategic clarity. The work aligned internal teams on where to play and how to win—balancing near-term feasibility with long-term growth potential. 

Importantly, the strategy demystified a complex and often misunderstood category, turning fragmented market signals into clear and actionable growth paths. As a result, the company is now equipped to create future-ready products and experiences that resonate in a dynamic, high-growth market. 

CASE STUDY

Morphy Richards

Reimagining the iconic home appliances brand to delight global audiences

Challenge

Morphy Richards, founded in the U.K. in 1936, is a leading home appliance brand with a long heritage. Despite the popularity, perceptions of the brand – particularly its British heritage – have grown less favorable. In some markets, consumers have begun to see the brand as unimaginative and outdated. 

The new owner acquired the company in 2023 and tasked Prophet with reimagining Morphy Richards’ brand identity, unlocking growth opportunities in international markets. Morphy Richards needed to be reimagined as a truly global brand, with a plan for product development over the next three to five years. 

Solutions

To achieve maximum growth, we believe that a company’s brand strategy should always go hand-in-hand with its business strategy. So, we started by learning all we could about Morphy Richards’ vision. We conducted in-depth interviews with senior management and distributing partners in different markets, reaching a precise alignment: Morphy Richards strives to become a leader in small home appliances in multiple categories. As a premium brand, it is innovative and has a distinctive style. Morphy Richards is committed to connecting closely with consumers, providing products that fill their daily lives with delightful surprises. 

Prophet translated these unique equities into a brand-new design direction “Evolving travel”. Building upon the design direction, we crafted a new brand logo with a kinetic logomark and its Chinese logotype. We also curated a distinctive brand palette and typographic style, developed a travel photography style fused with the warmth and romance of magic hours, and created a series of applications throughout the passenger journey. The brand’s fresh visual identity expertly uses dynamic lines to capture the vibrant energy and fluid motion of the China United brand. 

In line with this vision, we mobilized global resources to launch qualitative research in four countries, gaining deep insights into consumer lifestyles, attitudes, category consumption habits and brand preferences. Through a systematic and comprehensive analysis, we identified the target audience, focusing on middle and upper-middle-class families seeking to balance family, career and personal life. These consumers want home appliances that express their individual styles and embrace technology. 

During this immersion process, we also realized that the Morphy Richards brand faced complex challenges from consumers and distributors. That required looking at the brand through two distinct lenses. Consumers in different global markets have varying perceptions of the Morphy Richards brand and distributors have different understandings and expectations. 

Prophet developed a multi-lens model to derive potential positioning territories. We landed on a positioning centered around “innovation” and “smart life.” 

In line with this vision, we mobilized global resources to launch qualitative research in four countries, gaining deep insights into consumer lifestyles, attitudes, category consumption habits and brand preferences. Through a systematic and comprehensive analysis, we identified the target audience, focusing on middle and upper-middle-class families seeking to balance family, career and personal life. These consumers want home appliances that express their individual styles and embrace technology. 

During this immersion process, we also realized that the Morphy Richards brand faced complex challenges from consumers and distributors. That required looking at the brand through two distinct lenses. Consumers in different global markets have varying perceptions of the Morphy Richards brand and distributors have different understandings and expectations. 

Prophet developed a multi-lens model to derive potential positioning territories. We landed on a positioning centered around “innovation” and “smart life.” 

Multi-Lens Positioning Model

After we helped Morphy Richards answer the critical “who are we?” question, we helped it articulate the values and promises it brings to consumers. We also showed how those elements deliver against the brand’s positioning. These comprehensive frameworks laid a solid foundation for Morphy Richards’ future brand building. The refreshed brand positioning also provided clear direction for product upgrades and innovation.  

We recommended updating the brand tagline from “Smart Ideas for Your Home” to “Smart Ideas for Your Life” to reinforce the brand positioning and underline Morphy Richards’ extended value proposition. The product team at Morphy Richards has begun to incorporate the refreshed brand positioning into the product design and planning process. The concept of “integrated innovation” has become the center of gravity of new product development. 

Based on the new brand positioning, we developed a visual identity system. We retained the brand’s classic red elements while transforming traces of its British look into a dynamic and stylish visual system. It is modern, yet also true to the Morphy Richards legacy. We developed a detailed brand book, providing clear definitions and guidelines for applying different elements of the visual identity system, including the logo, graphics, colors, packaging, fonts and photography. 

Results

Morphy Richards officially launched its new brand identity in April 2024. The refreshed brand has injected new energy into the Morphy Richards organization and helped its brand team clarify the goals and mission for brand building and product development, driving uncommon growth in its new chapter. 

To support the brand positioning upgrade, Morphy Richards will continue to launch innovative products in international markets, striving to elevate people’s quality of life by bringing smart ideas to their homes. 

Prophet translated these unique equities into a brand-new design direction “Evolving travel”. Building upon the design direction, we crafted a new brand logo with a kinetic logomark and its Chinese logotype. We also curated a distinctive brand palette and typographic style, developed a travel photography style fused with the warmth and romance of magic hours, and created a series of applications throughout the passenger journey. The brand’s fresh visual identity expertly uses dynamic lines to capture the vibrant energy and fluid motion of the China United brand. 

“Our team holds great respect for the new brand positioning of Morphy Richards, which represents both our past legacy and future ambitions. It has become a benchmark for our work. Despite the challenges, this process has helped us align multiple departments.

Before every product idea, we now ask ourselves: Does it convey ‘smart life’? Is it innovative? And does it create an improved user experience? We are excited about this positive, purposeful change. We believe it will endure through longer growth cycles, enabling Morphy Richards to enter thousands of new households and become genuinely known and loved.”

Ray Zheng
CEO

Embracing “Morphy Richards Red”

Morphy Richards has been using two visual identity systems in different global markets. The visual system with the “Morphy Richards Red” as the primary color has been used longer and on a broader scale, especially in China. We recommended Morphy Richards retain this classic red in the refreshed visual identity to reserve and consolidate its brand assets. 

Prophet translated these unique equities into a brand-new design direction “Evolving travel”. Building upon the design direction, we crafted a new brand logo with a kinetic logomark and its Chinese logotype. We also curated a distinctive brand palette and typographic style, developed a travel photography style fused with the warmth and romance of magic hours, and created a series of applications throughout the passenger journey. The brand’s fresh visual identity expertly uses dynamic lines to capture the vibrant energy and fluid motion of the China United brand. 

Creating an Ownable Supergraphic System

We developed a modular grid system incorporating the arc elements from Morphy Richards’ “M” and “R” to design a flexible, simple, and easy-to-use supergraphic system. 

Interpreting the Unique DNA of British Design

As a brand that originated in the U.K., elements of Morphy Richards heritage are essential in the new brand positioning. Prophet’s design teams in Hong Kong and London immersed themselves in debates about what makes British design truly distinctive, ultimately settling on four characteristics of the British DNA that would strengthen the brand in its reinvention. These characteristics are fundamental elements and design logic to create the “most Morphy Richards” visual system. 

CASE STUDY

Rust-Oleum

A market leader generates new demand in a fast-changing retail landscape

Challenge

Rust-Oleum is the leading manufacturer of premium consumer and industrial paint and coating products. While market share remains strong, they recognized a shift where retailers are increasingly capitalizing upon consumer insights stemming from proprietary purchase data, and Rust-Oleum wanted to ensure they remain at the forefront of understanding consumer needs. 

As retailers build sophisticated media networks capable of targeted advertising throughout the customer journey, Rust-Oleum identified their own need to deepen target audience segmentation, streamline consumer purchase journeys, and improve product experiences. They are constantly working to increase brand consideration across products to build loyalty and generate repeat purchases. While Rust-Oleum has built substantial retail distribution through product innovation and depth of channel relationships, it has become essential for Rust-Oleum to build its own demand generation capability to inspire and educate consumers in new ways. 

Central to this transformation is the pivotal role of data, posing a significant opportunity in understanding target audiences, evaluating sales performance, and aligning marketing investments with sales and broader business objectives. 

Rust-Oleum’s ambition goes beyond defining a new organizational function; it requires a shift towards consumer-centricity, emphasizing projects over products and necessitating the establishment of robust data-driven capabilities. 

As a leader in their space, the company recognized the importance of staying ahead of the latest demand generation capabilities and ways of working.  

Solutions

Organizational paradigm shifts are complex. Helping this 103-year-old company transition from a product-centric wholesaler to a customer-driven growth engine required four components.  

Structural overhaul: Rust-Oleum’s first crucial step clarified the structure, capabilities, and resources required for the demand generation team. That meant redefining the marketing function, finding new ways to work with sales and content creation teams.  

Prophet, which has researched ways brand and demand work together in today’s marketing industry, helped increase focus on internal misunderstanding of a demand generation capability, emphasizing the importance of understanding a broader audience target beyond their core spray paint consumers. We helped stakeholders see how these demand generation goals align with the company’s overarching business objectives. 

Building the perfect pilot: Next, we focused on creating a tangible example of exemplary demand generation, illustrating what success looks like from conception to execution. The effort required a comprehensive industry and landscape analysis, using competitive insights to deepen the company’s audience personas and develop a meticulous media plan.  

Full-funnel implementation: The solution also emphasized a full-funnel approach, guiding Rust-Oleum beyond awareness and into sustained engagement and enablement.  The company has implemented that approach across their national marketing platform as they shift focus from products to projects. 

While the company was experienced in using paid media to engage audiences and spur sales, this revamped strategy opened new ways to sustain, maintain and nurture consumer relationships across owned channels and touchpoints. 

Sharpening measurement tools: Ongoing campaign planning and execution is measuring performance and improving the effectiveness of the end-to-end demand generation process. This equips Rust-Oleum with the ability to optimize their retail media, drive brand awareness and allow for future project inspiration. And it is building organizational confidence that will guide future investments. 

Results

Rust-Oleum kicked off the first campaign using this full-funnel approach in late 2023, with plans to run through the summer of 2024. Paid search, paid social, and direct partnerships with industry publications began generating positive outcomes almost immediately.  And the new approach is helping the team use real-time performance data to refine and enhance investment strategies, which are skills it needs to compete in dynamic retail environments. 

Rust-Oleum’s robust data analysis has allowed the team to develop vital experimentation muscle. The current marketing campaign includes many new test and learn approaches to assess paid media impact on sales and improve marketing performance, thus driving future investment decisions.  Armed with these findings, the company is moving beyond advertising, creating web and mobile experiences that enrich the consumer journey. 

Rust-Oleum is evolving from a traditional wholesaler to a consumer-centric organization, tapping into new audiences and product use cases to drive sales more effectively. 

These insights are building the brand’s retail resilience, helping it make profound correlations between marketing efforts and sales impact. These are the kind of “aha” moments that build brand relevance and lead to uncommon growth. 

“This effort involved new thinking for Rust-Oleum. Armed with more robust data and insights, we can drive sales and support our retail partners. Prophet helped us bring deep credibility and rigorous data measurement. That was invaluable in demonstrating the impact of Demand Generation to our executives. The Prophet team is also fun and meshed with us in ways we haven’t experienced before. That helped us upskill our own teams and get to unexpected solutions faster.”

Lisa Bialecki
Vice President, Strategic Communications & Demand Generation

CASE STUDY

Kibo Foods

Ingredients for a Successful CPG Product Launch

Challenge

Colombian CPG conglomerate, Grupo Nutresa, was launching its first North American product, Kibo Foods—nutritious, delicious chickpea chips—to the U.S. market, exclusively through Amazon. 

They needed a partner that could bring a modern approach to all aspects of their U.S. launch—branding, marketing, owned and paid media, content development, website, e-commerce, fulfillment, media management, performance measurement and optimization.  

Solutions

Since Kibo Chickpea Chips had no previous brand presence in the North American market, it was crucial to determine their potential consumers. We identified online tribes of healthy snackers to understand possible target audiences based on their affinity for similar brands and likelihood to buy snacks on Amazon.com. Three “Healthy Snacker” target profiles were built with hyper-focused demographics—including interests, brand affinities, personality traits, shopping behaviors, influencer relationships, media channel consumption habits and most-engaging content types. 

We then refined the Kibo brand positioning, crafted relevant messaging themes, and established a distinct, playful voice and visual design system. Detailed message maps overlaid the brand strategy to the shopper journeys and confirmed which omnichannel assets, experiences and messages would engage audiences most. We then created an all-in-one visual web design platform that allowed us to build and take the site live without a long development and testing process. Working closely with the Kibo team, we established their digital storefront on Amazon, providing consultation, SEO-backed copy, product imagery, offers and ad assets. 

Then, we created a media strategy to put the right message in front of the audience at the right time. We selected channels, allocated the spend and modeled against goals to ensure a drive to purchase. To get the brand in-market quickly, we conducted a three-day video and photo shoot strategically organized to capture an entire asset library, which included motion graphics, product photography, lifestyle imagery and video assets, allowing us to build a seamless customer experience across the website, social channels, email and display—and setting up the Kibo team for ongoing social engagement.  

Results

We helped Kibo get its start in homes across America with continuous optimization through analysis that fueled robust sales growth. To enable internal marketing and creative teams to execute and extend the brand effectively, we developed an activation playbook that synthesized the brand strategy and summarized brand guidelines. Performance reports and optimization recommendations were delivered monthly to guide ongoing content, theme and messaging decisions. 

Impact

23%

over sales growth projections

CASE STUDY

UGG

Building a relentlessly relevant brand

Challenge

A beloved brand known for its iconic boots, UGG was looking to expand its relevance and connect with Gen-Z consumers in an emotive and ownable way. With a mix of established and emerging markets across the globe, UGG wanted to not only identify their target customer but understand where and how to create deeper engagement and drive further growth with them. The brand needed to show up as a more assertive and compelling brand— inspiring its consumers to join a community that stood for something beyond trendy footwear.  

But creating a relentlessly relevant brand for UGG meant balancing several key challenges. We had to reach (and win with) Gen-Z consumers without alienating UGG’s existing core customers. Which meant managing the tension between making bolder moves to meet the self-expression of younger consumers and maintaining the classic UGG brand for legacy consumers. 

Solutions

We began our immersion by conducting internal stakeholder interviews to understand the vision and aspirations for the brand. We then conducted global consumer qualitative research to better understand consumer perspectives on the brand, their lifestyles and communities, and to generate a hypothesis for a global brand direction. 

Using this as a foundation, Prophet implemented a rigorous quantitative process to deliver consumer target segmentation for UGG driven by customer style attitudes and core emotional & functional needs. Out of the 6 segments identified, we prioritized 3 unique segments that UGG could act on and start driving engagement with. Our team also provided targetable Micro-Communities built around passions, hobbies and other interests with these segments for future activation. From these inputs, we worked iteratively with the UGG team through workshops to define UGG’s global brand positioning and voice, and how to activate this newly defined brand. 

Results

Prophet worked with UGG to identify and prioritize consumer target segments along with a global brand strategy to align the product, marketing, and overall consumer experience across all of its brand touchpoints. 

Prophet delivered a brand book used to communicate and rally the new strategy internally and guide activation efforts across functions and organizational teams. Our work aligned UGG and the parent company, Deckers, to have a unified focus on their brand’s “north star” and their primary consumer targets. 

“The Prophet work was a rallying cry for the entire organization to galvanize around our primary consumer target. We’re all speaking the same language now and that was almost indescribable in terms of how far we’ve come in a very short period of time.”

Carole Diarra
Vice President of Marketing

CASE STUDY

ASUS

Defining a compelling ESG story to lead a sustainable future 

Challenge

ASUS is a leading technology manufacturer that has set an ambitious sustainability goal to achieve 100% renewable energy in global operations centers by 2035. With a focus on creating positive impacts on the environment and society, ASUS has championed data-driven and scientific management methodologies to optimize sustainability practices.  

Having invested heavily into its ESG initiatives over the past few years, ASUS saw an opportunity to better communicate its ESG strategy and success to the market. Prophet partnered with ASUS to create a compelling ESG narrative to demonstrate the tech leader’s strong commitment to sustainability and a better future. 

Solutions

We started by understanding ASUS’s ESG vision and current strategy through in-depth interviews with executives and stakeholders across multiple business units. Our key focus was to better understand ASUS’s underlying strategic motivations and unique competitive edges in ESG. We also conducted audits on how ASUS and other leading technology brands communicate their ESG efforts and identified key trends and best practices to inform future communication strategy.  

Based on internal and external perspectives, we developed three potential creative territories to articulate ASUS’s ESG narrative and crystalized a unique and future-ready ESG narrative that’s deeply rooted in the company’s DNA. The new ESG slogan – “Sustaining an Incredible Future” – underscores ASUS’s commitment to creating shared value for everyone, with reference to its brand essence “In Search of Incredible”. A variety of activation ideas were co-created to guide ASUS’s key divisions in developing future initiatives to underpin its ESG strategy. 

To bring our narrative to life, we transformed the new ESG principles into a comprehensive visual system and flexible key visual. Our core visual pattern concept starts from a single pixel that symbolizes ASUS’s singular focus on technology advancement, and evolved into a grid system that signifies the accumulation of experience to create an incredible future for all stakeholders. A living brand flexible enough to anticipate and solve any environmental needs, representing ASUS’s focused areas for ESG. The color palette comprised of ASUS blue and a fresh teal, balancing contemporary and sophistication. Additionally, we created a comprehensive icon library, including recommendations on how the iconic visual patterns can live and expand with ASUS.  

Results

In January 2023, ASUS hosted an inspiring launch event with its new ESG value proposition , “Sustaining an incredible future,” at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), sharing with the world its commitment to a sustainable future. The ESG narrative creates a strong and compelling purpose for the tech leader to connect its organization, products and employees. 

Prophet continues to explore new initiatives and activation ideas with ASUS to bring its ESG ambition to life. 

Client Testimonial

“It was a pleasure to partner with Prophet on the journey driving sustainability at ASUS. Prophet’s experts understood deeply the core of ASUS’s DNA and ESG strategy and developed a sophisticated ESG narrative through storytelling and visual expressions. The updated ESG strategy was launched at the CES as the keynote of ASUS’s exhibition with wide attention and acclaims.” 

Eunice Chou
Global Commercial Marketing Head, System Group, ASUS 

CASE STUDY

The North Face

Defining a unique proposition for the iconic brand’s loyalty program in Greater China

Challenge

Since its inception in 1968, The North Face has become an iconic global outdoor sports and lifestyle brand. For years, the brand successfully operated a loyalty program called XPLR Pass, but the team determined that the program needed to be revamped in the Greater China market to create deeper engagement with its broad Chinese consumer base. The North Face hoped to expand on the types of benefits provided by XPLR Pass beyond monetary rewards, ensuring representation of the organization’s brand DNA while elevating consumer perceptions, building greater engagement and further differentiating itself from competitors. 

The North Face partnered with Prophet to craft a unique positioning for its loyalty program while ideating new benefits to bring it to life.  

Solutions

We started by immersing ourselves in the current state of the brand, conducting stakeholder interviews and reviewing past strategy efforts. In addition, we ran an immersive competitor audit to understand best practices around loyalty programs and interviewed industry experts to identify opportunities for differentiation. 

Through our research, our team identified key insights that allowed us to develop a unique positioning for XPLR Pass. We anchored the program on The North Face’s authentic history, providing trusted guidance to fuel exploration, which helped to reinforce the brand’s DNA while clearly articulating its distinctive values in Greater China. We then facilitated discussions and co-creative workshops across The North Face’s teams to clearly define XPLR Pass’s strategic objectives, design targets and customer journey roadmap. This helped us align on the key priorities of the revamped program, which was brought to life through four strategic pillars: outdoor empowerment, expert guidance, community and exclusivity. These pillars were then used to guide the ideation of the benefits provided by the program. 

A key ethos of our approach was to work collaboratively to ensure cross-functional buy-in of the new strategy. Our team leveraged innovative digital tools to facilitate interactive virtual sessions to drive alignment on the refreshed positioning. Once the strategy was set, we helped codify all elements of the updated program into a playbook, that could be used to inform all stakeholders about the program’s strategic components. 

Next, we developed an engagement strategy for next-gen high-potential brand lovers, to cultivate future growth potential. We defined identifying metrics, preference metrics and engagement tactics for the next-gen consumers. Also, we examined the existing engagement strategy of the brand and provided recommendations on how to build solid customer profiles that combine membership and transactional data with broader engagement data. Lastly, with our digital experience expertise, we recommended best practices for consumer tagging through advanced social media tactics, such as WeChat CRM, to help The North Face team drive ongoing engagement. 

Social media assets created by the North Face
Social media assets created by the North Face

Results

Our strategic work with The North Face set the foundations for the success of the revamped XPLR Pass program, serving as a key pillar of future growth for the brand in the Greater China market. The North Face team used the playbook to drive socialization across business functions and begin implementation of the new strategy.  

The strategy was then translated by the North Face team into customer-facing messaging. The revamped loyalty program was announced to Greater China consumers on WeChat in August 2022. The WeChat mini program was also designed to capture customer engagement data to help set the foundations for rich, actionable customer profiles to drive future personalization. 

CASE STUDY

Ulta Beauty

Transforming a leading beauty retailer’s marketing department 

Challenge

National beauty retailer Ulta sought to recalibrate its marketing model to shift from product and category-focused operations to a more integrated approach, keeping customers at the center. The organization needed to balance master brand-building marketing with efforts to generate demand for the brands it sells. The evolving market and consumer dynamics create nuanced pressure to quickly adapt to meet customer wants and needs.

Solutions

Prophet designed a marketing operating model focused on supporting agility and efficiency. This approach also allowed the brand to prioritize improved communications and increased collaboration.  

First, our teams worked with Ulta to define a future-state vision across the organization, inspiring teams, providing clarity and ensuring active ownership. We then designed integrated, streamlined processes for market planning, prioritization and briefing to support the model we had created. Lastly, we implemented a new operations function to support a centralized view of the market. This helped drive the new planning and prioritization process, reducing the burden on Ulta’s functional teams. 

Results

The new marketing operating model enabled Ulta to become an integrated, customer-centric marketing organization. The new system has led to improved communications, increased collaboration and boosted productivity across the organization.

Impact

14

processes documented

144

key employee pain points addressed

“Prophet pushed us to think differently about our organizational structure and what would serve us best, both for the short and long-term. Today, we have greater synergy and efficiency across our growing marketing organization which benefits our teams, brand partners and ultimately our guests.”

Karla Davis
Vice President of Marketing

CASE STUDY

Consumer Electronics Retailer

A consumer electronics retailer finds new growth territory through convergence

Challenge

For years, consumer electronics retailers focused their digital transformation efforts on individual product transactions and omnichannel retailing to drive revenue. Yet with digital commerce, companies offering greater transparency and choice to customers, and supply chain innovations enhancing accessibility of products, it has become nearly impossible for traditional retailers to compete on product assortment, channel mix or price. As a result, our client was experiencing declining margins for several consecutive quarters.

Solutions

To unlock uncommon growth, our client needed to converge transformation efforts around a whole new purpose and way of doing business that took into account the needs, behaviors and expectations of customers today. Through an iterative ideation process, Prophet uncovered loyalty-driving experiences that helped them reimagine their purpose and establish a new relationship with their customers and employees as not just a place to transact but a place to get great customer service.  To test our hypotheses, we engaged in service design processes that were rapid, iterative and collaborative, focusing on key experiences and pivoting based on customer feedback.

Results

We prototyped new formats, built an MVP of a platform service for customer support, and detailed an operational blueprint that could be piloted at the enterprise level. In addition to a new value proposition, we also build a website to socialize the tools and visual mock-ups that would help bring everyone from the C-suite to sales teams on board.

CASE STUDY

GARDENA

Growing a brand through a customer-centric transformation

Challenge

After years of steady growth, GARDENA – a brand of the Husqvarna group – is the leading pioneer of high-quality garden tools in Europe and is represented in more than 80 countries all over the world.

While its focus on engineering-driven innovation and revolutionary design is an immense asset, GARDENA realized that it needed to deepen connections with current and future customers to continue its success story. Prophet was tasked with transforming GARDENA into a customer-centric organization, with a focus on evolving its approach to marketing and go-to-market strategy.

Solutions

Collaborating with marketing teams across key regions, Prophet established a uniform approach for GARDENA’s marketing community to think beyond product launches and selling. Prophet encouraged the adoption of an ‘always-on,’ customer-centric mindset that focused deeply on customer retention and value creation.

We instilled processes and systems, supported by easy-to-use tools and templates, to drive marketing effectiveness. The initiatives laddered up to GARDENA’s goals and were tracked to prove maximum efficiencies.

Together, with the marketing leadership, we defined the capabilities and operating model required to deliver against GARDENA’s customer-centric targets. The new operating model was designed to align capabilities along the entire consumer journey, emphasize digital effectiveness and ensure that a consistent, purpose-led brand directs the activation across traditional and digital channels. The target result was a seamless omnichannel customer experience.

A learning program was also developed to ensure the marketing community was inspired and empowered with the right skill set to make GARDENA’s ambition a reality.

Results

Prophet positioned GARDENA to become the world-class, customer-centric organization it aspired to be. A strong customer-centric mindset has now become part of the organizational DNA. The new marketing KPIs, metrics and purposeful processes deployed are boosting consumer engagement and powering a more digitally savvy GARDENA brand.

Staying in pole position requires continuous transformation. Thus, Prophet will continue its journey with GARDENA with ongoing learning programs designed to upskill its full marketing function. Additionally, Prophet will continue to build the long-term brand strategy roadmap for the business to keep customer-centricity firmly at its core.

CASE STUDY

Colgate

Rejuvenating Colgate’s brand positioning to drive growth in China

Challenge

Colgate is a global leader in oral care with more than 40% share of the global toothpaste market. Having entered China in 1992, Colgate has become a household name with its slogan “No Cavities” widely known by Chinese consumers.

With the rise of China’s new middle class, the premiumisation trend has been growing in prominence in the personal care category. At the same time, the post-90s and 2000s generations have become the driving force of the category’s growth. Niche brands are increasingly sought after, while leading domestic brands are also gaining momentum. The Colgate brand was losing its vitality and appeal with young consumers in China.

Despite having a clear global brand mission “Everyone Deserves a Future They Can Smile About,” Colgate needed a better way to connect with China’s young consumers. To achieve this ambition, Colgate worked closely with Prophet to rejuvenate the brand with a distinct and vibrant positioning, anchored deep in China’s cultural and consumer insights.

Solutions

In just two months, we conducted comprehensive consumer research to gain an in-depth understanding of China’s new middle-class and the evolving needs of young consumers. Our insights showed that the new generation of Chinese consumers care more about the present and focus on near-term goals that move their life forward. However, for reasons such as lack of confidence, they often don’t take action against those goals.

Based on this key insight, Prophet worked with the Colgate team to dive deeper and define the positive role that Colgate can play in consumers’ lives. We developed the positioning, “Smile and Go for It” (放开笑放手做) – a proposition rooted in consumers’ desire to define a more passionate life, while anchoring on Colgate’s brand essence of smiling. It encourages consumers to smile with confidence and take action to pursue their dreams and goals, no matter how big or small, and to live out the life they want.

With the positioning identified, Prophet then facilitated workshops with Colgate’s marketing, innovation, e-commerce and design teams to develop the brand activation roadmap. Moreover, Prophet helped Colgate leverage the micro-segmentation work conducted by Tmall. By providing strategic analysis of the segmentation and identifying high-value customer groups, we were able to help the client determine the most relevant product innovations to bring to market. In addition, in order to strengthen the understanding of Colgate’s new brand positioning across internal and external stakeholders, we developed brand guidelines and provided guidance for Colgate’s communication with ad and media agencies.

Results

In July 2019, Colgate launched the “Smile and Go for It” campaign to activate its new brand positioning. Through a series of targeted marketing initiatives, Colgate built aspirational connections with diverse consumer groups who share different passions using film, TV, music, talk shows, workplace, beauty and ACGN (Animation, Comic, Game, Novel), encouraging them to tell their own “Smile and Go for It” stories. In only two months, Colgate’s campaign discussion on Weibo (a Chinese social media platform) had exceeded 420 million views.

Colgate has continued to draw inspiration from the brand positioning developed by Prophet, as well as the reset portfolio strategy, to carry out product innovations. In 2020, Colgate launched a new anti-aging toothpaste, an industry-leading move that created a new premium subcategory. At the same time, Colgate continued to reinforce its effort in building emotional resonance with young consumers. A recent initiative was its partnership with the top reality TV show “CHUANG 2020” as well as Chinese pop icon Wang Yibo.

Colgate’s brand rejuvenation has seen monumental success, with its top-of-mind awareness among 18- to 29- year-olds increasing from 13% in 2019 to 17% in Q2 2020. Once again, Colgate is a key player and driving significant business growth in China.

“With a thorough understanding of the challenges we faced, Prophet unpacked the tension and passions of Chinese consumers. Through a meticulous validation process, they crafted a positioning that’s true to both the Colgate brand and Chinese consumers. In addition, they were very good at navigating multinational companies, and bridged that understanding to drive maximum impact.”  -Vicky Hu, Marketing Director, China Brand Marketing – Core Brands

“Through a meticulous validation process, Prophet crafted a positioning that’s true to both the Colgate brand and Chinese consumers to drive maximum impact.”

Vicky Hu
Marketing Director, China Brand Marketing – Core Brands

Impact

4%

percent increase in brand awareness amongst targets

Your network connection is offline.

caret-downcloseexternal-iconfacebook-logohamburgerinstagramlinkedinpauseplaythreads-icontwitterwechat-qrcodesina-weibowechatxing