The question

How does a heritage brand become modern? The usual routes to “modern” hadn’t gotten the team where they wanted to go. How does one build desire amongst affluent consumers who appreciate premium spirits?

The approach

I started by reframing the question. Modern isn’t a color palette, a soundtrack or a celebrity partner, though those can be expressions of it. Modern is a way of inhabiting life today, shaped by the conditions we live in. So instead of asking how a brand can look modern, I asked what it takes to belong in modern life.

Then I went to my affluent consumer panel. The week-long study, with affluent consumers who appreciate premium spirits, explored:

• What makes something or someone iconic
• When and how people celebrate, including the unexpected moments they mark
• An understanding of the brand’s character
• Rites of passage, and how thinking about them anthropologically can open up the moments a brand can belong to

Outcome

I turned the study into early insights and provocations, and they became a core part of the strategic workshop with the brand team. The anthropological thinking gave the discussion a fresh lens on modernity, on celebration and on what makes a brand an icon, and gave the team a range of strategic directions to react to and sharpen. Out of the workshop came a new strategy for the brand, shaped by my research and anthropological thinking.

The question

How do you position an electric vehicle that isn’t the first or the only one? What does it mean for a car to feel “alive,” and how do you communicate that to the US market in a way that is true to the vehicle and clearly Lexus’s own?

The approach

At the start of a launch, I partnered with strategy to build the cultural understanding they need before getting to the brief. For the RZ, I took aliveness, the quality the engineers had designed into the driving experience, and analyzed how the idea shows up across culture, in language, imagery and brands. I mapped what I found on a semiotic square and developed it in full, with examples from brands and culture.

Outcome

The analysis gave the team eight codes of aliveness, each with its own examples, imagery and language. They became the inspiration, verbally and visually, for the three positioning territories. They also gave the planners a shared starting point for ideating, first for Lexus’s consumer research and then for the creative brief.

The question

Does a heritage brand still carry meaning for today’s luxury travelers, and is that meaning worth building on? If it came back, would it stand alone or sit alongside Marriott’s existing luxury portfolio? What does ultra-luxury actually require of a hotel, and how far can a distinctly Italian brand travel without losing what makes it special?

The approach

I ran a multi-stage digital study over several days with affluent, well-traveled luxury travelers across Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia. Rather than treat the brand as a set of awareness and preference scores, I looked at it as living culture: the stories, memories and imagination that surround it. From there, I explored what ultra-luxury means to this audience, how different ways of structuring the brand would land with them, how they see the competitive landscape, and what a revival and international expansion would need to honor.

Outcome

The research gave leadership a clear, human view of the brand and the decisions in front of them. The final report covered:

• The mythology around the brand: what people know, remember and imagine, and the world it calls up
• What a revival should protect and what it needs to evolve
• How the brand could be structured within the portfolio, and who each option is built for
• What ultra-luxury asks of a hotel today
• How brand identity can travel, and where it needs to adapt to local culture
• A map of the ultra-luxury landscape and the tensions that organize it

I brought leadership strategic recommendations: guardrails and risks for each path the brand could take, a view on how to approach a revival, and principles for taking it international. The goal was to give them something to act on, so they could make the decision with confidence.

The question

The RealReal knew its consignors. What it wanted to understand was the larger group of people who share their mindset: how they live, how they shop, and what fashion does for them. This was needed to help guide marketing messaging and sales interactions, and to support ad campaign development.

The approach

I designed a four-stage study that included:

1. Secondary research: A curation of existing research on luxury consignment.

2. Syndicated Data analysis in partnership with a member of our quantitative research team.

3. Qualitative research: A diary study in tandem with digital qualitative research activities and in-depth interviews (IDIs).

4. Profile development: I synthesized everything into a target profile and two audience segments.

Outcome

The research revealed one shared mindset that shows up in two different ways, so I developed a single target profile with two segments. It gave The RealReal a vivid, human picture of the people at the heart of its audience.

The report explored:

• Who the customer is, their personality and lifestyle, and what fashion and personal style mean to them
• How they engage with trends, and the role fashion and shopping play in their lives
• Where their love of fashion comes from, who influences their choices, and who and what inspires them
• How they shop, from the hunt for the perfect piece to where sustainability fits in
• What they expect from the brands they shop with

The report also came with practical recommendations the team could put to work across marketing, concierge service and sales conversations. They covered how to connect with customers, how to earn a place in their shopping routines, and how to share the story of The RealReal’s sustainability efforts in a way that lands, plus ideas for where to take the research next.

The work also fed into Team One’s Story Continues campaign.

The question

What does wellness mean to luxury travelers? What draws them to one wellness stay over another, what does their ideal journey look like from start to finish, and how do they see the brands that already compete in this space?

The approach

I ran a multi-stage qualitative study with affluent wellness travelers around the world, built on their own recent stays, their reactions to ideas, language and brands, and their feedback on an end-to-end wellness journey.

Outcome

The final report gave the team a clear, human picture of the luxury wellness traveler and a way to think about the category. It covered:

• What wellness means to luxury travelers, and the role a wellness trip plays in their lives
• What drives where they choose to go, from the first spark to the final booking
• Which concepts and language appeal to them, and which turn them off
• Their ideal wellness journey, including the moments that matter most and what’s missing today
• How they see the landscape of luxury wellness brands, and where the opportunities lie

The learnings from the project informed executive-level decisions that needed to be made for the portfolio, and guided wellness brand strategy.

The question

How do people think about reward? What do they feel when they use a rewards card? And what language helps them, or gets in their way, as they move through a rewards experience?

The approach

I led an online qualitative study with rewards cardholders. It explored their own stories and goals alongside their relationship with their cards, so the language and design could be built on what matters to them.

Outcome

The final report gave the team a human foundation for the redesign. It explored what reward, achievement and loyalty mean to people, how they use rewards cards today, what gets in their way, and what an ideal relationship with their card looks like. It also looked closely at the language of rewards, including how words and framing shape meaning and trust. The work went on to inform the creative brief and the UX and UI work that followed.

The question

What makes a loyalty program feel worthy of a luxury traveler’s loyalty? What do affluent travelers need and want along the journey that a program could answer, and how do they react to new ideas for a luxury loyalty program?

The approach

I ran a multi-day digital qualitative study with affluent travelers who are members of my affluent consumer panel. It explored the loyalty programs they love beyond hospitality, their desires across the travel journey, and their in-depth reactions to the concepts.

Outcome

The final report gave the team a clear, human view of loyalty in the world of luxury travel. It covered:

• What affluent travelers love about loyalty programs in luxury, inside and outside hospitality
• What they want along the travel journey, from planning to return
• How they responded to two loyalty concepts and the existing program, benefit by benefit
• What’s missing from the concepts, in their eyes

It closed with implications for how to develop each concept, so the team had specific next steps to act on.

The question

A three-row SUV is, by design, a vehicle for families. But what does “family” mean to the people who buy one today? How do families move, spend time together and relate to one another, and what do popular stories tell us about the kinds of families people recognize and aspire to?

The approach

I looked at family from two directions. First, I explored family dynamics in the real world: how families live and interact in and out of their SUVs. Second, I analyzed the cultural landscape, studying the family types depicted in popular shows to understand the stories and archetypes that shape how families see themselves. Together, they gave the team a human and a cultural view of the people the TX is for.

What we found

The research gave the TX team a clearer picture of the families they were building for, and it fed straight into the work:

• Positioning: sharper clarity on who the vehicle is for and how it fits into family life
• Strategy: a stronger foundation for the launch strategy
• Creative: inspiration for the launch campaign

More about the launch and campaign (and the outcome of my work!) can be viewed here: https://pressroom.lexus.com/the-first-ever-2024-lexus-tx-three-row-luxury-where-everyone-wins/

The question

What makes a wine feel luxurious? How do affluent wine drinkers think about luxury, what role does wine play in their lives, and where does a premium brand sit in their minds?

The approach

I ran a three-part online study with luxury wine drinkers, combining at-home tasks, mobile ethnography of shopping for luxury wine in the moment, and a series of discussion groups on luxury and the brand.

Outcome

The final report gave the team a clear, human view of luxury in wine and of the brand’s place in it, with implications for brand positioning and audience development. It became the qualitative foundation for the next steps: positioning, target audience research and communications planning.

In the report, I:

• Built a framework for how luxury works in wine, covering everything from placement and packaging to ritual, myth and rarity.
• Uncovered the human tensions luxury wine resolves, from the pressure of choosing well to the question of what a bottle says about you.
• Created 6 segments of luxury wine drinkers, defining their values, their lives and how they define luxury.
• Analyzed the brand’s symbols and mythology to understand what makes it feel sacred and what holds it back.
• Advised on opportunity segments for the brand and supported the strategy around its target audience.