lauren sornberger

Humble abode

THE BRAND IDEA: We’re all familiar with the DTC home brands of today: Brooklinen, Parachute, and Weezie, to name a few. The team saw one major issue with the available brands – all of these brands depict perfection. Perfectly styled mid-century homes, happy heterosexual couples moving into new houses, and crisply made beds. Each well-known brand had varying levels of success in the market, but no one owned the real mess that is life today. Humble Abode was created to show just that.

Lauren played an integral role in creating a brand identity from naming, content creation, and eCommerce development. The team implemented a social tease campaign and ramped up social advertising one month before the launch. We amassed a 500-person waiting list and sold out of the towels in one hour. Ultimately the board of directors felt home goods were too far from our core competency to continue, but the success was a true testament to what happens when you listen to consumer needs then build a brand around what they want.

STAGE GATE: Pilot

OUTCOME: PAUSE

Kapsel

THE BRAND IDEA: Kapsel was born out of the idea that women have enough to worry about and what to wear should be the last, and we spoke to 150+ consumers aged 12-35 who confirmed our suspicion. Kapsel aimed to provide women with access to high-quality wardrobe essentials, capable of repair when she's worn them through, recycling when she wants a re-fresh, or merely making wardrobe additions. Five new products will be offered at the beginning of every season: January & June. On occasion, the silhouettes will purposefully remain the same. After all, we're in the business of making essentials you can live with forever. We'll keep things exciting and ensure her closet won't get bored by partnering with established and unknown designers to create monthly product drops of the designer's choice.

To test the brand's viability, we launched an eCommerce shop, targeted social ads, and allowed consumers to sign-up to be the first to know when the brand launched. Within two weeks, we had a pre-order list of three-hundred customers. Ultimately the cost of consumer acquisition was too high for the brand to make it into the next stage gate. Lauren's role was to manage all branded aspects of the concept – from naming, brand identification, copy content creation, and eCommerce set-up.

STAGE GATE: Concept I

OUTCOME: PAUSE

FORM & FUNCTION

THE BRAND IDEA: After speaking with 50 consumers ages 18-34, we heard one snippet loud and clear: women are not happy with the current business casual assortments at a reasonable price point – 76% were unhappy, to be exact. The Anne Taylors and JCrews of the world were "mom clothes" to them but they could not afford products at a higher price point, and they felt M.M.LaFleur didn't speak to their generation. Enter: Form & Function. Built with the wearer's all-day comfort in mind, beginning with five simple silhouettes. The creation of Form & Function would mean that women no longer have to choose between style and function - they can have both.

After sizing the market, the team deemed this opportunity worth nearly $45B and created a new apparel market called "Workleaisure." To test the brand's viability, the team created target social ads that ran for two weeks and saw a 2.2% click-through rate on the ads, a benchmark of 1.4% is typical, which meant the initial signals for this brand were 2x stronger than expected. Ultimately, the members of the LS&Co. Board felt that with a looming pandemic in its headlights, creating a new product category was too risky, and the team did not continue with the brand concept.

STAGE GATE: Concept I

OUTCOME: PAUSE

SCOUT SWIMWEAR

THE BRAND IDEA: THE BRAND IDEA: To kick off the team's work, we held 300 1:1 interview panels with Gen Z consumers. During these calls, we spoke to the interviewees about their day-to-day activities, from waking up, getting dressed, going to class, working, and finally, a night out with friends. The team's role was to listen without bias and identify possible need statements; for example, "It's so hard to decide what to wear when I see it's raining in the morning but will clear up in the evening." 

We heard resoundingly that these Gen Z consumers hate to try on bathing suits. They found the lighting unflattering in changing rooms and would prefer to try on many swimsuits without making the initial investment of buy-and-return. Enter: Scout Swimwear.

The Scout Swimwear business model could be called "The Warby Parker" for swimwear. To test the brand's viability, ran social ads that drove to a 10-question fit quiz. The fit quiz would drill into their fit preferences and body-type and ultimately provide us with a clear understanding of purchase intent. The test performed astronomically; we had a 92% completion on the quiz. Ultimately, the new business model investment was too high for the LS&Co. Board to move the brand into the next testing stage.  

STAGE GATE: Concept I

OUTCOME: PAUSE