The making of an essential icon
Icons aren’t born, they’re made. But for multi-brand retailer USC, it had lost sight of the iconic style that had made it famous. Despite 30 years in the game and over 138 stores across the UK, it was chasing trends and trying to be too many things to too many people. As a result, no-one knew what USC stood for – not shoppers, not the brands they wanted to attract, and not even USC.
We imagined a new reality for USC, not by reinventing its purpose – but by reminding it of the value it had been hiding all along. The brands it stocked, from Converse to Hilfiger to Lacoste, were built over decades and billions of dollars. And for generation after generation, USC had been helping customers to find and curate their style from these legendary labels. Our new story repositioned it not as a retailer, but as a discovery platform for the world’s greatest lifestyle brands.
We unpacked the brand’s Zennial customer: a constantly changing, experimental demographic always looking to discover ‘brand me’. We saw a clear opportunity for USC to become the favoured destination for these social shoppers by inspiring the original in everyone. Under our new positioning brands were elevated to ‘essential icons’: classic, must-have products that have transformed culture over decades.
We proposed 8 strategic must-dos, from thinking like a product company to being present in culture. Our new art direction framed each product like it was in a gallery. Combined with authentic stories about how each brand has shaped culture – told through product shoots, campaign mock-ups and a brand film – we helped USC to see its products in a way they’d never considered. This also showed the brands how much they were loved and appreciated, creating better relationships with its partners. USC has since taken our story and run with it, redesigning its stores and transforming its social presence. Out of the basement of Sports Direct, and into a future fuelled by the icons of the past.
UK
