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.