Tom Wilder 0:00
One thing that informed every direction was Sweetgreen’s mission, which is to connect people to real food and build healthier communities. So that will always stay true to them. It's been part of them since day one. And so that obviously informed a lot of the thinking that went into the different directions. One of the other big things that we talked a lot about that I think Sweetgreen is very curious as a brand, they don't lack curiosity, they're always willing to think about what the art of possible is. And so, a lot of what came out of that strategy work was how do we maintain this kind of sense of wonder or curiosity, this kind of naivete, I guess, to think that anything can be possible and how do we think about the future of food? What does that look like?
Blake Howard 0:59
Everyone welcome to a change of brand, a show featuring behind the scenes stories of rebrand glory, drama, or disaster. I'm your host, Blake Howard. Today is our last episode of season two. And I just want to say thank you. Thanks to everyone who has listened and supported this show this season. We are incredibly humbled by the response and are very much looking forward to season three. And we have got a great story to end this season on because we're talking about something that everyone loves food, but not everyone loves fast food. Typically, words like cheap, greasy or unhealthy come to mind, but fast food is changing, and so are their perceptions of the entire category. Brands like Panera, Chick fil A, Chipotle and more have elevated the fast casual landscape. But there are also a few new comers that have unearthed more potential for the category as well. Instead of being fried, what if it was fresh; instead of a box what if it would have come in a bowl instead of lard? What if it was local? Okay, that one's a bit of a stretch. But what if instead of a sandwich as the base what if you had a really fresh and tasty set of greens? Sweetgreen, the brand we are discussing today has done just that, they have found a way to essentially make salads cool. They've struck gold by meeting the need of high-quality fresh ingredients. With a commitment to sustainability in a quick and portable option. You just have to pay a bit more for it. Sweetgreen has earned a cult like following. People just love their food, me included. I am a tried-and-true harvest bowl kind of guy and they strike me as a brand that feels authentically healthy, like built from the ground up to be healthy at its core, not a fast-food brand with a new marketing campaign to push for a fresh or healthier image. So how does the company with such fandom, authenticity and success scale without losing the core of who they are? For more context in history on Sweetgreen and what led up to this 2021 Change of brand. Let's go to brand strategist Tracy Clark for brief in.
Tracy Clark 3:16
In 2007, three recent graduates of Georgetown University were fed up with eating junk food, Nicholas Jammet, Nathaniel Ru and Jonathan Neiman had met in an entrepreneurship class and coincidentally, each were children of immigrant entrepreneurs having seemingly inherited the startup gene. Ru and Neiman got the idea to serve up something fresh in their college town, with $10,000 contributions from each of their parents and an additional 375,000 in seed money raised from friends and early investors. The trio opened the first Sweetgreen Restaurant in Washington, DC’s Georgetown neighborhood in August 2007. That first Sweetgreen location was a 560 square foot shacks that came without plumbing or electricity. The team rolled up their sleeves and installed utilities and crafted the premier Sweetgreen menu in Jammet’s dorm room. Incredibly, the Sweetgreen recipe took off. In just two years, Jammet, Ru and Neiman had opened their second and third locations in DCs upscale Dupont Circle neighborhood and Bethesda, Maryland respectively. There was something special about Sweetgreen salads, which had achieved local cult status with long lines spilling out of its doors. By 2013. Sweetgreen was rolling in green having raised more than $35 million in funding from venture capital firms. That same year, the restaurant made its way to the Big Apple opening store number 20 In Manhattan's NoMad neighborhood located between Herald Square and Madison Square Park, as the saying goes, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. And that's exactly what Sweetgreen did. Additional funding rounds raised more millions and the company continued expanding across the country. A big part of Sweetgreen’s success is its insistence on fresh, responsibly sourced ingredients and a commitment to social impact. Community is the heart of Sweetgreen’s business with a company proclaiming its commitment to leaving people and the planet better than it found them. Its menu is seasonal and it varies slightly by location and its packaging is compostable to build out its supply chain. Sweetgreen develops relationships with regional local farmers in each city it's located in. In each restaurant a source board is on display listing where each and every ingredient comes from. A ton of celebrity partnerships and a music festival to boot has solidly entrenched Sweetgreen as a lifestyle brand and in some ways, a social signifier. The restaurant’s relatively high price point, embracing cashless operations and seemingly homogenous customer base has drawn jokes and some criticism, but that hasn't stopped the Sweetgreen money train. In 2018, the company became the first ever restaurant brand to be dubbed a unicorn. That is a brand valuated at $1 billion.
Blake Howard 5:46
If I told you 25 years ago, when Starbucks only had a few locations that someday they would be a global phenomenon, or Chipotle? Nobody would have believed that Starbucks would now be worth $60 billion, and Chipotle worth $16 billion. But that's what's happening. Well, that's what we feel with Sweetgreen.
Blake Howard 6:01
Today. Sweetgreen operates 140 restaurants in 12 states and the District of Columbia not bad for starting up in a literal shack and in 2020 Feeling the need for a little more freshness and their identity leadership was ready for a change of brand.
Blake Howard 6:18
Sweetgreen’s old brand identity was composed of a rather sparse and lightweight lowercase Wordmark. Overall, the look wasn't particularly groundbreaking, especially for a brand as alive as Sweetgreen. Collins the agency who led the refresh came in with bold, exciting energy, revamping Sweetgreen’s color palette with a vivid lime green playing off of a signature shade dubbed kale. They also composed beautiful ingredients and product photography and added a little fun. Thanks to their playful illustration style, the brands wordmark gained some heft and was redrawn and paired with a suite of custom typography. Altogether, the update creates a nice well-rounded identity that left many brand nerds like me, drooling. To get the inside scoop on the creative process, I had a chance to talk with Tom Wilder, the former Creative Director at Collins. He led the project and then crossed over to the other side becoming the Executive Creative Director at Sweetgreen, allowing him to implement the new identity and steward the brand. In 2019, when he first heard about the chance to work with Sweetgreen, he was pretty excited because he was already a fan.
Tom Wilder 7:25
I, you know, had really only experienced them I think as my kind of go to two to three times a week. Literally right across from our office like our office was on 11th and University, the Sweetgreen is right across on University. It's a five-minute walk from building. And so, the fact that you can digitally order a salad, very quickly pick it up and go back upstairs. And I mean, if you've ever experienced New Yorkers eating, most of them just like eat at their desk, right? So, it's kind of like you're working, you're eating, you're working, you're eating and Sweetgreen just became this kind of healthy habit in a way where I could just go downstairs, not interrupt my work day, but also still get something good to eat and be super convenient. Because it was also right across the street, I got really excited because my mom has a background in biology. And I think once I started to learn and understand a lot more what they're doing in regards to sustainability, and trying to get to net carbon neutral by 2027. And even just all the things they do with their supply chain and farming, it really kind of piqued my interest. Because I think somehow that's always been ingrained in me probably through my mom, whether I knew it or not in my upbringing, about the importance of sustainability and climate change and kind of what the future of the world will be. So, I remember back thinking a lot about the sustainability portion, a lot of questions about are they a food company? Are they a tech company, are they Food and Tech company? There was a lot of really interesting, like nuances of them as a company to discover. And so just really excited about the first conversation.
Blake Howard 9:02
The first meetup happened at the Collins office, and it was a chance for them to get to know each other and discuss the potential of a brand Refresh Project.
Tom Wilder 9:09
At Collins, we have this kind of giant conference room is kind of where all the clients come in, and the ceilings painted kind of this neon yellow-orange. Collins is a big fan of mid-century modernism. So, there's mid-century modern furniture. And I remember Nate, Nathaniel Ru, who's the co-founder, coming in to Sweetgreen along with a brand manager that's now on my team, Eric Estroff. And they came to our office in Greenwich Village, and it was kind of a springtime, and we had lunch. And we talked about our work, talked about food talked about sustainability and of a number of things. It was really just a casual conversation. But what I remember you know, most I think about the meeting is kind of almost before we had the meeting, we sometimes ask clients, hey, you know, what case studies would you be interested in and almost always clients want something that’s within their category, because it feels familiar. And what was interesting to me is the work that Nate wanted to talk about was the work that I worked on for Twitch, or our work with Dropbox or work that we had done for Spotify, and really looking at kind of these different tech platforms that are kind of creating a new future. And I thought that was really interesting, because it led to a discussion where we talked about kind of how do we start to connect brands to culture, food to culture, and try to build those new futures, the same way that a lot of these tech companies’ kind of disrupt entire industries and then create something new. And so is it really fascinating first conversation.
Blake Howard 10:40
Tom wasn't quite sure if that initial meeting was part of a traditional competitive process or not. But nonetheless, Sweetgreen was wooed and the Collins approach to new business really worked.
Tom Wilder 10:52
A lot of times in our meetings, when potential clients would come in the door, we would actually tell them whether or not we thought we were the right fit for them. Because sometimes clients don't want to take the risks. They don't want to be pushed, they want a quicker process than we think it takes to be or to have the creative output and the creative thinking and the storytelling and the narratives that we're trying to build for them. So, there's a lot of things that we in those initial conversations are just really upfront about. And I think sometimes that works in your favor. And sometimes it doesn't. But I think for Collins in particular, it helped us attract clients that were like minded, and we're ready to create an impact with their brand.
Blake Howard 11:34
Sweetgreen was interested in a brand refresh, but not necessarily to fix any major problems. It was a well-regarded brand, and they had made pretty good decisions up to that point, they weren't even sure if the logo should change. This was an opportunity, however, to create a more robust kit of parts for their brand team and to support their business's growth, it was also an opportunity to define how they saw themselves internally, and then reflect that externally, ideally, to become a truer version of Sweetgreen.
Tom Wilder 12:01
But our challenge, I think, at Collins was they have this authenticity, the founders are there they met in Georgetown, there's three of them. They're college students, in an entrepreneurship program. They start their first restaurant in a burger shack in Georgetown, 500 square feet, and they have all these narratives, and they have the right ingredients in their food. And the product itself is absolutely delicious. But how do we just create the system so they can scale and expand without losing all those unique qualities that made them like loved in the first place? Right? It's like, first rule of engagement, do no harm, because the brand, as you said, is already so rich.
Blake Howard 12:42
What about their appetite for change? I mean, did they say hey, do everything that’s best? It's all on the table? Or were there some parameters?
Tom Wilder 12:50
I think it was really interesting. At first, there were certain things even when it came to the logo, where it was like, well, that's really difficult for a restaurant who has a physical footprint to change out all their signage. I mean, that's a huge undertaking, and there you know, there were kind of these limitations in the sense where you as going back to what I said about doing no harm, you as a designer have to take those into consideration to push as much as is responsible. And so, I think what we looked at, it is all right, there are certain components in here, that would be difficult to change. But I think the conversations that we had with me and the rest of the co-founders was we can put everything on the table. And then let's see how it shakes out.
Blake Howard 13:32
So as you went into start solving the problem, where did you start? Was there like a research phase? Was there an immersion phase? Did you eat a ton of harvest bowls? Like, what did you do first?
Tom Wilder 13:42
To get going? Yeah, definitely a ton of harvest bowls. I'm glad you went back to that. That is my personal favorite go to, I could eat that bowl probably four or five days a week and never get sick of it.
Blake Howard 13:52
But my doom is why try anything else.
Tom Wilder 13:56
But yeah, going back to the greater process, obviously, I think whenever we are working on any of this project, and there's, you know, a strategy and a positioning phase. And we want to create the right narrative and the right strategy that's going to allow for the most creative opportunities and flexible and coherent design system. And so, I think once we landed on the strategy, and the positioning, we started to kind of dig into what does the work look like visually? Right? How does this manifest itself in visual form based on the narrative that we're trying to create? And it's a very broad question, when you think about it, I think it's what makes design and our industry so exciting is because there are 1,000,001 combinations, and 1,000,001 places to take inspiration in and it really lives in your imagination, which is it's kind of funny, we always talked about it as almost like Willy Wonka in a way, right. It's like if you dream this like Dreamland, it can kind of can exist, right? But it only exists in your mind and it's your job to kind of formulate it into existence. And so, every person Collins whenever we would do any work, really, it would start in the library. And Brian has this amazing collection of 10,000 plus books in the library. It's absolutely insane. And it's his personal collection. And he just kind of adds to it every month. And every year, just keeps growing. I think we actually ran out of room on the shelves at one point, they were just getting stacked on the floor. But we use that library because it's so eclectic in the nature of the books that exists there. There are books on Rem Koolhaas, there's books on poetry, Greek mythology, there's books on Chanel, there's books on Walt Disney, Brian is a huge fan of Walt Disney, there's probably like 100 books on Disney. And I think what's really interesting about all those references is it allows your mind to wander, you know, you're able to sit there, you're able to sketch, you're able to look at these books for inspiration. And if the inspiration is not there, we'll go to the Strand, which was like three blocks away and try to find more books on that. I think that's a really maybe weird thing about Collins is that we are so analog, when it came to that we don't do a lot of like what's on Pinterest, what's on Instagram, we look for nuance and reference points that are undiscovered or haven't been put online or feel really maybe interesting, or something that people didn't even think could relate to a food brand. The beauty of the library is that it is physical. And I think when you walk away from your computer, it does allow you to kind of just like pencil your notes, sketch them all down. And so that's ultimately where always the creative process starts.
Blake Howard 16:39
As the Collins team was keeping it analog and scanning the library for inspiration. They were also thinking strategically about the Sweetgreen brand and what narratives they should focus on in the creative work.
Tom Wilder 16:50
One thing that informed every direction was Sweetgreen’s mission, which is to connect people to real food and build healthier communities. So that will always stay true to them. It's been part of them since day one. And so that obviously informed a lot of the thinking that went into the different directions. One of the other big things that we talked a lot about that I think Sweetgreen is very curious as a brand. They don't lack curiosity, they're always willing to think about what the art of possible is. And so, a lot of what came out of that strategy work was how do we maintain this kind of sense of wonder or curiosity, this kind of naivete, I guess, to think that anything can be possible, and how do we think about the future of food? And what does that look like?
Blake Howard 17:38
The future of food was a core idea for the brand at the time, I actually found a commercial from August 2020 pre rebrand that talked more about this idea of the future of food.
Tom Wilder 17:50
The future of food starts here. With a tap, you're connected to the freshest ingredients. It's like having your go to grower on speed dial, with access to local farms and vegetal boundaries, we bring the farm to you, Mother Nature approved. It's not just food that tastes good, it's food that does good, super seasonal, radically, right, ready to eat, make an impact on the future of food order on the Sweetgreen app.
Blake Howard 18:19
Now, Collins focused in on this idea of the future of food for their first round of design work. And these initial design meetings are always a little tricky for agencies. If you go too far down a design path, like creating an entire visual system, and the client doesn't like it, it can be a costly mistake. So, you want to show the client some initial ideas and thinking to get their input early. And that's essentially what Tom and his team did next.
Tom Wilder 18:44
We call them provocations because it could be a series of sketches, it could be a series of color that we just threw together, almost, you know, like Jasper Johns inspired, you know, kind of just pairings of how we feel like this could come to life, it could be a sketch of typography, it could be, you know, just ephemera really, that we took our sketches or inspiration from, and we start to just kind of tease it out a little bit to just see where the interest might lie. And beyond just those sketches, too. I think the other thing that we do is look at different movements, and things like that throughout history. So, going back to kind of even 1970s the kind of hippie movement and what did food look like, during that time? You know, when did veganism and vegetarianism come about? And what did those movements look like? We started to look back into like, what was LA like, during that time period? Because that's where the kind of headquarters is founded, you know? And so really trying to take inspiration or what is the future of food look like? And what does that mean to people? And how have people started to talk about that. And it's really interesting when you start to take all those kinds of narratives and stories and visual reference points, and they become kind of this like melting pot together. And then that leads to I think, other new ideas. And so for us having that kind of mixture of sketches and kind of the movements and these kind of events or places and kind of look at how those are visually interpreted, that all gets kind of like baked into the process along the way, before we actually get to the first presentation.
Blake Howard 20:10
With a good sense of where they could or should head visually, the Collins team went to work on the right mixture of color type imagery etcetera, for the Sweetgreen brand, and their idea of the future of food, they shared three directions for the Sweetgreen team to consider.
Tom Wilder 20:26
We presented at Collins and in the same large conference room that I mentioned before with the giant orange ceiling, and we walked them through three different directions all based on the strategy and the narrative that we had talked about. And you know, some were inspired by that kind of future of food narrative that we were talking about. Some elements were inspired by the vegetarian movement, some of them were that kind of 1970s kind of funkier vibe. Some of them was a mid-century modern piece. Some of it was from Farm Journal's planting guides, almanacs, one of the directions was inspired, kind of their entire color palette, was inspired by the seasons and the way you experience things through the senses. One of the directions had, I think, expressive typography where the system responded to different flavor profiles, obviously Sweetgreen spends a lot of time thinking about you know, things that are sweet, salty, bitter, umami, sour, etc., about how do those different flavor combinations come together? Typographically was something that we were super interested in, a lot of these brand identity systems, they have multiple components, right? It's typography. Its illustration, its color, its logo type. It's sometimes graphic elements. Sometimes it's layouts or grid systems. And I think what we tried to do in those initial rounds is how do we go as wide as possible to explore every possible vernacular for this brand that we feel like could be right, and then have a conversation about it, because we believe that creativity can happen only in conversation and dialogue. And so, it's important to have those conversations so that in every presentation along the way, you're gradually kind of building the blocks to kind of refinement and crafting every detail as you go. But you're kind of also acknowledging every kind of both internal and external factor about the brand, right? Obviously, Nate founded the company and so, he knows kind of all aspects of the brand. And that helps inform decisions as we move forward of how to build it the right way.
Blake Howard 22:25
Yeah, it's a little bit of the dance of you're the expert and branding, you know how to use design the right way as a tool, but it has to be truly reflected about who they are. And they have to see themselves in it, you know, even though you are the expert, you still need them to see themselves in it so that they believe in it, they own it, and they use it.
Tom Wilder 22:45
And they get behind it totally. A lot of times we you know, the way that I think we talk about it is a brand is very much like a person, and they want to know who you are, where you've been and where you're going. And if you've ever been in a conversation in New York, that's probably the extent of the conversation.
Blake Howard 23:02
I love that. That's awesome. So, you presented the three, three directions that you're excited about that explore a lot of range. And you hope that Nate and others on the Sweetgreen side see themselves in it. After you stopped speaking, what was their reaction?
Tom Wilder 23:18
Well, there’s a thing at Sweetgreen that everyone does. And it was something almost when I first experienced it, I didn't know how to take it, I had never had an experience like this in a lot of different client relationships that I have had over, you know, my career. And they start each meeting with a moment of gratitude. And this moment of gratitude is something so unique to Sweetgreen, but it's a way that they recognize and appreciate partners and team members and employees and anyone they're working with at the start of every call. Because they really do value the time it takes, I think, to do something the right way, or to have the ability to have these conversations. And I think it was such a unique thing for me to experience to start off, you know, to your point, you're like, well, I hope they love one of these. But everything was kind of articulated in a way that was through this sense of gratitude, gratitude for the work and it always kind of came down to this conversation of well I could see myself in each of these directions, but which parts are the most true to Sweetgreen. I remember being excited to get back to kind of sketching and getting into the next round because you know the ideas were kind of flowing after that initial conversation.
Blake Howard 24:41
Okay, when we come back from the break we learn where those sketches lead and get a different perspective on the work from a designer on Tom's team. All that and more after the break.
Blake Howard 24:54
Hey everyone, I want to take a quick minute and give a hat tip to Matchstic. It's where I work and it's our pretty partner for this show. We specialize in helping brands elevate their identity to the next level. If you need help clarifying your message or standing out in the market, be sure to visit us at matchstic.com. That's matchstic.com. Oh, and one more quick thing. If you're a fellow brand nerd like me, and you're enjoying the series so far, be sure to tell a friend or leave us a review. Okay, back to the show.
Blake Howard 25:28
We left off just after Tom and the Collins team had presented three concepts for refreshing the Sweetgreen brand identity. They had a moment of gratitude true to Sweetgreen culture, and the discussion about which options might work best. From there, the Collins team got to work and had a series of presentations back with the Sweetgreen team pruning and adding items with each round as they headed towards an identity system that everyone felt good about working. Alongside Tom Wilder and the Collins team was Sanuk Kim, she's a senior designer at the firm and gave me her take on the work as well.
Sanuk Kim 26:03
Our client ended up liking some aspects from all three directions. And we tried to like find the right balance to insert a little bit of those moments from the other two directions into direction three. So, I think at the end, like it was like a happy medium that everyone was aligned to. And I think those aspects from other two directions, we think really made great additions to what we have accomplished already. We really wanted to hone in on signaling a big change for Sweetgreen. And their growing ambitions had to be like, mesh with a new word mark. I felt like the older word mark, which was like very modern, it was like doing a great job. And we felt that it was a little limiting to convey the grander mission of Sweetgreen. So, I remembered that was like the main point that the logo wordmark and the monogram had to be matched with our new identity system.
Blake Howard
They refined the visual language and ordered up some custom typography. Collaborating with the type foundry and creating a unique illustration style
Sanuk Kim 27:09
The logo is based on this custom typeface suite fence, which is a censored tie family we have created in collaboration with LA based type foundry Nickel Type. And then we also complemented that typeface by adding a serif typeface called granite designed by the foundry Holophone, which is like a unique and contemporary reimagination of an old-style series, something that you could kind of find in a chef's book, again, like a reference back to the vintage cookbook. And the purpose of having the two typefaces was to allow them to express more variable and expressive voice. And another thing that I personally love about this project is the illustration style that I created in collaboration with other Collins colleague named Zona, and we kind of like started concepting and developing this style. And our main source of inspiration that came from that vintage cookbook that really like highlights the craft and artistry of hand painted illustration. And we felt that it was very close to Sweetgreen’s food eaters while infusing a bit of like light hearted humor and playfulness to the overall brand.
Blake Howard 28:25
One of the last-minute additions to the project was a logo change, which we all know complicates things here. However, the update was so subtle that most people wouldn't even notice, which actually comes with its own set of problems. Sometimes clients can be real cowboy gunslingers and push for more change thinking before going to change and pay for new signs and collateral let's really change let's make the most of it. And other times clients will say, well, with the change this subtle, why even do it, no one will even notice we should not pay for new signs and collateral etc. So, it's a bit of a catch 22. And as a designer, just designing the kit of parts around an existing logo definitely feels limiting. Here's Tom Wilder again.
Tom Wilder 29:06
There was a lot of hesitancy on changing the logo and what that would mean. And I can totally understand that. Because more than anything in culture, for whatever reason people have a thing about logos, they are the first thing that everyone seems to, you know, tear down on Twitter, it’s the first thing that it's the logo or the color always. And I've seen my fair share of the Twittersphere reacting to new brand identities. And so, I think at first there was some hesitation on changing the logo. But as the system began to develop, and as the other elements became kind of stronger and stronger and feel more, right more true to the narrative that we were building, the logo kind of fell naturally into that. And it started the last couple of discussions were really around if we are going to change the logo mark. What does that mean? What does that mean for the company? What does that mean for our people? What does that mean? For us as founders, it was a really kind of amazing last two discussions working through and workshopping with the founders refining the typography, so that it could feel both familiar and surprising. And I think that's a difficult balance. But it was the one that we were going for, and the one that felt the most right for Sweetgreen.
Blake Howard 30:23
It's the balance of this visual system that many have really appreciated about this redesign. The custom suite sans type is very modern, clean and borderline cold. But adding some more nostalgia with, a typeface by color font that feels more downhome. And traditional, helps create a nice balanced typography. Similarly, they developed a flexible color palette to pair with their seasonal menu and core green colors. And there was more.
Tom Wilder 30:51
We also created this modular system of shapes, which was really helpful for app design, and also Sweetgreen. And they act as these kind of modules and containers. And this seems so obvious, but they were inspired by the culinary bowls and plates, that Sweetgreen serves the shapes of the hex bowl, and the shape of the plate. And then ultimately, kind of the shapes of their side dishes and those that's kind of how this modular system of blocks and shapes work that we could use across the brand system. All of these elements have a sense of truth to them that directly connects to what Sweetgreen does as a company, as a food brand. And I think when you could tie each element to an idea that was so unique and true to Sweetgreen, and combine that with these other elements together, whether it was type and illustration, or type, color, and illustration, and you start to combine these elements and you realize, oh, this is a completely new way to look at it, but they all work together. And they're all telling the story in different ways because they're all based on those truths.
Blake Howard 31:54
Another part of the refreshed brand identity that stands out to me is the voice. It's a bit cheeky and challenging. But also, warm and homegrown, you start to see headlines like more gardens less carbon food from farms that you can drive to or deliciousness is in the details. These short pithy statements really support the development of the brand identity as a whole. And with that new identity in hand, the Sweetgreen and Collins team plowed ahead, rolling out the change internally first. Around this time, however, Tom decided to make a career change. After seven years with Collins, he joined the Sweetgreen team as their first ever executive creative director. And a big part of his job was to implement the new brand identity that he and the Collins team just built.
Tom Wilder 32:39
Once I got into the position, I'm in now, there were more teams, right that needed to be it needed to be rolled out to or who didn't witness the presentation or see the full, you know, version of the identity and what was to come. And so, it was kind of a series of rollouts internally, then to kind of share all the different pieces and what it means for each team, and what it'll mean moving forward and how things might shift and evolve. So, it was a really smooth transition between the handoff and the rollout of the brand. Internally, obviously, it took six, seven months before it went external. It's always continuing because a brand is really just a living organism that keeps evolving over time. And so, I think that's how we try to treat the brand is we look at the guidelines, we look at the elements, we look at the system. And we constantly think about how do we kind of use, you know, nuance and reference points and things like that, to build on this that all still feel like Sweetgreen, but can constantly create that kind of surprise and delight to consumers.
Blake Howard 33:47
So when you were preparing for that rollout, were you getting nervous? Because you know, like what the internet can do? Did you or people on your team have a little anxiety? Or were you more just really excited,
Tom Wilder 33:58
I think the best thing that I could do for my team is prepare them, prepare them for what could happen and recognize that Sweetgreen is a brand that people care deeply about. And when people care deeply about a brand. They tend to have strong opinions good or bad. And you have to understand that it's coming from a place of passion and that they deeply care about the brand. And we as a brand team have to keep kind of just doing what we're doing and stay the course.
Blake Howard 34:30
In 2021 the new identity rolled out across the Sweetgreen app and their website. Several media outlets covered the change and several new stores opened including one in my hometown of Atlanta. Around that same time, they announced their first athlete partnership with Naomi Osaka releasing a salad named after the tennis star.
Tom Wilder 34:50
Sweetgreen presents inside the mind of Naomi Osaka. Okay Naomi, Sweetgreen is naming a salad after us, what should we put in a? Chicken? Cilantro could be cute. Corn? Why don't we just make it my regular order? Good idea. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. It's ready already.
Blake Howard 35:20
Was there any blowback or any negative feedback once it launched?
Tom Wilder 35:24
Is it possible in this day and age to have all positive media?
Blake Howard 35:27
It seemed widely well received? And maybe that was because people love Sweetgreen?
Tom Wilder 35:34
I think it's a couple things. I think the first thing is that balance that we were talking about feeling familiar and surprising. And I think there was a lot of familiarity, we changed the green and changed the color palette, but they're still green, we changed in the logo type and a number of the other elements. But we wanted to always keep the balance between something where customers understood that we weren't changing the promise of Sweetgreen, what they always delivered on, we were just creating a system for them, so that they could achieve what they wanted to in the future and building that future of food that they're trying to create. I think there's been, you know, other rebrands out there that are maybe more controversial, but a lot of that, you know, is maybe because of shock value, maybe because people aren't anticipating or don't feel like it should look that way. Yeah. And they're actually in that sense, could be a cognitive disconnect, where the customer or whoever's participating in the brand has felt like they've lost a sense of what that brand means to them. And so, you know, they've kind of thrown out all familiarity. And I think that just wasn't the case with Sweetgreen. And I think that that balance is probably why it didn't occur.
Blake Howard 36:50
This refresh was successful. For a lot of reasons, the Collins team built a beautiful system that had a lot of flexibility, but was also built from an authentic place for the brand. It wasn't an exercise in vanity, but a creative interpretation of a truer version of Sweetgreen. For one, the internal team is able to move at a much faster pace with a clear visual system while still maintaining high quality standards for the brand. Beyond that the business has been ripe for the harvest. In November of 2021 it went public debuting its IPO and exceeded projections by 85%, ending the day with an evaluation of 5.53 billion. That's a lot of salad. As for the future of Sweetgreen, Tom isn't sure what it holds. But that's kind of the point.
Tom Wilder 37:39
I kind of feel we're just getting started. It seems like there's a huge runway ahead of us. And I think I might actually answer that question by saying I don't know. And I don't know if I have an answer to it. But I think that's what also keeps me the most excited about what the future of this Sweetgreen brand is and how that impacts the future of food and how we can connect food to communities in ways that I'm not even thinking about today through design seems really exciting. It's kind of the point of the future in a way you can't really see it.
Blake Howard 38:15
Okay, thanks for listening and special thanks to Tom Wilder, Sanuk Kim and the team at trust collective. To see more visuals from today's episode, head on over to achangeofbrand.com and if you liked today's show, share it with a friend or leave us a review on Apple podcast. Today's episode was edited by Matt Owen and fact checked by Jill Jeffries and co-written by Pamela Hinman. Special thanks to Tracy Clark for our briefing and Rachel “I'm sorry, Miss” Jackson for today's artwork. I'm your host Blake Howard, signing off.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai