Cross-Category Design Partner

/ Staples: The Challenge

Business Challenge

The Staples brand is a retail marketing machine. They defined the “big box” shopping experience well before Amazon arrived to reset retail rules around selection, convenience, and price. And they were among category leaders who ably complemented their bricks and mortar equities with ecommerce competencies.

But for a category-dominant retailer like Staples there is always a monster at the door. In every segment where they play Staples faces ongoing product, channel, and price competition. There’s a reason their brand values—Accountability, Pragmatism, Customer Focus, Collaboration, and Simplicity—are so straightforward. Winning means improving on that value proposition year after year after year.

Key Insight(s): Staples found a kindred spirit in Sprout. Their values resonate with the Sprout ethos where hustle and quality and pragmatism are also part of the equation. We have built a relationship with Staples around these shared ideals that now spans ten years, diverse house brands, and dozens of projects across every segment in their portfolio.

With over 150+ consultancies and vendors supporting the Staples design and branding team, there are many swim lanes and premier talent in all of them. There are also versatile, agile, and responsive resources in the mix, including Sprout, who Staples relies on for multidisciplinary, multi-category, multi-lane support. As an ID-led marketing studio, with deep competencies in packaging structures and graphics, along with visualization expertise from ideation to shelf edge, Sprout has a skill set that package goods marketers require. As design consultants, we crave problem solving for Staples at any scale—from authoring new-to-the-word products to reviving underperforming in-line changes.

Style at Staples

The challenge here is to balance the voice of Staples house brands with those of its licensed brand partners so that the in-store and online experience is compelling and cohesive. We threaded this visual design needle for offers from Martha Stewart, Condren, Dwell, Cupcakes & Cashmere, and others. Against a backdrop of Staples goodness we showcased these seasonal and specialty offers in ways that put the entire category in a new light.

NXT

Our NPD work for this consumer electronics portfolio embraced the design criteria that grounds all Staples brand experiences—remove obstacle, offer clever capabilities, and epitomize value. From surge protectors, to powerbanks, to in-car chargers, to wireless headphones and speakers, to cables and thumb-drives, we have developed products that fit the need, packaging that celebrates the products, experiences that on-board new owners, and graphics that built equity for the NXT brand.

Staples Viz

Omnichannel retailers like Staples rely on the lock-step visual presentation of their products and packaging from web presence to shelf edge. When you multiply that requirement by tens of thousands of SKUs, you need a precise ground game. Sprout supports the uniform rendering of Staples assets throughout the go-to-market process with rendering protocols and time-saving techniques that have become a Staples competitive advantage.

Staples Education

As part of work for Staples upstream and downstream in the product and packaging development process, we have helped refine best practices for on-brand conventions and production quality control. Our relationship has expanded to include workshops where we cross-train teams around print production practices which ensure that packaging designs flow smoothly from intent to execution.