PepsiMoji ran across 100+ countries in 2016 with emoji-branded packaging, a #SayItWithPepsi hashtag, and five-second video spots via Ketchum and Porter Novelli. The execution missed — generic symbols, no behavior driver. The instinct — symbol communication on packaging — was a decade early.
General Mills built the most durable character IP portfolio in American CPG — Betty Crocker, the Pillsbury Doughboy, Lucky the Leprechaun, the Trix Rabbit, BuzzBee. Synthetic personas, refresh cadences, removal-as-strategy, parody-resistance.
PepsiCo continues to operate as one of the more substantial portfolio reinvention machines across multiple categories. The diversified portfolio structure, the multi-category architecture, the continuous experimentation culture, the cohort-driven product development, and the broader snack-funded experimentation across Frito-Lay, Quaker, Gatorade, Tropicana, and broader beverage operations.
Periscope shut down in 2021. The live-streaming category is bigger than ever — Twitch, TikTok Live, Amazon Live, YouTube Live, Instagram Live. The Periscope failure was a product failure, not a category failure.
Branding PR firms carry the earned-media and narrative side of brand launches, rebrands, brand crises, and brand transformations — distinct from brand design agencies that build the visual identity. The category map and the firms running this work.
Skechers became a $10 billion company by systematically rejecting the assumptions that governed modern footwear marketing. Inside the marathon brand, the $9.4 billion 3G Capital acquisition, and the uncool moat.
Airbnb's 2024 Icons launch turned its homepage into a public artifact of a new product category — the case study for why B2B and B2C companies redesign now.
How Dunkin' built one of America's most visible consumer brands. Ownership, timeline, the 2018 rebrand, crisis communications, criticism, and the Charli D'Amelio playbook.
SOREL's 2012 "Get Your Boots Dirty" campaign is the case study every heritage-utility brand should have read on the way to becoming a lifestyle brand.
Mondelez became a $36B snacks business. Kraft Heinz took a $15.4B impairment. The naming risk that mattered in 2012 was translation. The risk that matters now is retrieval.
