It’s not about a product with a logo. It’s about strategy, storytelling, and building brands.

Our WHY is to Create & Inspire Brand Interaction™

Inside a client’s brand resides their purpose, history, culture, and the very fabric of their DNA — what makes them who they are. Through their products or services, it is the way they put their mark on the world and it is how others perceive, think and speak of them. In everything we do, we create a frequent and lasting connection between the consumer and the brand through fanatic interaction, and to guard against thoughtless, irrelevant product execution.

Boldly, this is our brand position and point of difference. It is how we see the world of brand building and it is the purpose behind everything we do.

We always start with WHY, but the formula is in the HOW.

We deploy a sophisticated set of tools and a systematic methodology to every project that allow us to create extraordinary consumer-focused solutions for some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Simply put, this is why those brands who aspire to redefine what they can achieve choose to work with Touchstone.

This is how we VIEW brands

Brand Power
The value that a brand adds to a product

If we asked you the value of a diamond ring, what would you say? $1,000? What if I said that ring was from Tiffany & Co., what then? $5,000? Now imagine I got that ring from Walmart, what did it cost me? $250? The same could be said of a ribeye — Mortons vs. Applebees. The point being, all things considered, the way a brand can add (or subtract) value from a product by the sheer association with its name is a powerful thing. At Touchstone, we add power to brands by elevating the consumers perception of your value.

Brand Focus
‍Successful brands know they’re not for everyone

If you try to be everything to everybody, you end up representing nothing for anyone. The brands that recognize the value of focus and owning their archetype resonate deeply with their fans. Self awareness is crucial to the success of a brand — not just knowing who you are, but understanding why you exist. This is why discovery, mapping and positioning is so important to what we do and why we don’t make any merchandise decisions without a fully defined brand focus.

We are Brand Soldiers.
We redefine what can be achieved.

Why We Matter
Brands are like fingerprints — each one unique and unlike any other

Before we start talking product for any project, we deploy a sophisticated set of tools first to ensure that every decision aligns with the brand and every piece created resonates with the targeted audience. These discovery workshops are designed to draw out insights that we use as a blueprint for building great collections, and ultimately brands. This is how we connect with the hearts and minds of consumers for the brands that we serve.

The two most important days in the life of a brand are the day they are born and the day they find out WHY.

Our WHY is to Create & Inspire Brand Interaction...what’s yours? How do you tell your brand story? Could it be better? What’s your purpose, what’s your cause? Why does your brand exist? We believe in the principles of the Golden Circle — that people don’t buy what you do, they buy WHY you do it. 75% of purchasing decisions are made in the limbic brain (emotional decision making), not in the neo-cortex (rational, logical decision making). Are you connecting with your audience in an emotional, fanatical way? It all begins with WHY.

Your brand has a personality, whether you realize it or not. We pull back the layers that allow you to see it clearly.

We look at brands the way we look at people — they all have different personalities and various characteristics that make them who they are. You simply can not make an informed decision about what’s right for a brand without first understanding that brand’s archetype. Our brand archetyping workshop travels through the spectrum of these personality types, identifying key traits, pros and cons, as well as tendencies. Then, through an evenly balanced process, we dial in on your brand’s specific archetpye formula.

These trend mood boards give us a visual reference to your target audience. Without them, everything else is just a guess.

We never stop studying retail trends as they are constantly changing. We strive to keep a finger on the pulse of fashion forecasting and the various types of consumer groups that are emerging. Identifying style profiles for your consumer base — understanding what brands they love, what colors, materials and patterns they gravitate towards, what they eat and drink, what they drive — allows us to place merchandise options in front of them that they are already in love with.

Through this process, we define the areas in which you can gain access to every aspect of your consumer's daily life.

In the past, if your process for building a merchandise collection started with product, it was built wrong. In order for a brand to thrive, their product execution needs to be built to understand the personas and access points of a consumer's daily life. Who is your intended audience? Is it professional, uniform driven? Are they active lifestyle, on-the-sidelines parents? Do they transition from a work environment to a casual environment with their family? Our Day-in-the-Life process delivers collections that give consumers access to your brand in every area of their life, no matter what they're doing or where they're going.

Visual line plans and defined segmentations allow us to take a holistic view and approach to building brands.

When we built a merchandise collection for Warroad Original Hockey Co., we identified and defined their collection segmentation by lifestyle — PREMIUM, SPORT and CORE. For your brand, you may be focused on your retail audience or the function your audience serves. C-suite or Casual? Where do they sit on the XY coordinates we consider? Our VLP (visual line plan) process follows the mapping of those defined segmentations, whatever they may be, by populating your collection with merchandise specific to those categories. This gives us collectively the ability to make informed decisions that are results-driven in every way.

Our 5 Step Process for singular project-based opportunities

For those unique, 1-off, event-driven type projects that aren’t collections...

Not every client needs an inventory-based web interface solution. However, we still have a sophisticated formula for those projects too! Much like our systematic workshops, our 5 step process follows a path of discovery and insight before making any product decisions. In the end, the result is the same — aspirational merchandise execution that’s consumer-focused, and brand aligned.

Through our methodology and approach, we deploy an intellectual set of tools and a process which deliver merchandise collections that are simply fanatical.

The Brand Book
‍The ruler we measure all decisions up against

Brand PowerThe value that a brand adds to a product

Brand Focus‍Successful brands know they’re not for everyone

We are Brand Soldiers.We redefine what can be achieved.

Why We MatterBrands are like fingerprints — each one unique and unlike any other