Rebrands work when they blend rigorous strategy with brave creativity. This case study follows a composite engagement modeled on Flintler’s 5-phase creative process to show exactly how a brand can move from Discovery to Launch and land real market impact. It illustrates the decisions, artifacts, KPIs, and tools that matter, and where structured iteration creates momentum you can measure.

The 5-phase backbone that keeps creativity accountable

Flintler’s structured process is simple and strict: Discovery, Strategy, Design, Refinement, Launch. It sounds linear, but it thrives on feedback loops, which is why it consistently turns brand insight into performance outcomes. That discipline dovetails with what the McKinsey Design Index has shown for years: companies that excel at design increase revenue growth and total returns to shareholders at nearly twice the rate of industry peers, with top-quartile performers posting 32 percentage points higher revenue growth over five years, as reported in the McKinsey Business Value of Design.

To make this practical, we will anchor each phase in a real deliverable, key decisions, and the metrics we track.

Background: The rebrand brief

A fast-growing consumer wellness brand had a familiar problem. Its product reviews were strong, but growth had flattened, repeat purchase lagged, and social engagement was volatile. The leadership team believed the visual identity no longer reflected product quality or purpose, and the website’s checkout experience undercut conversion. They engaged Flintler to reposition the brand, rebuild the identity system, redesign the product experience and website, and orchestrate a coordinated launch.

Budget and model: Flintler works on transparent, tiered monthly pricing that ranges from 2,499 to 8,499, so teams see exactly what is covered. Scope here included brand strategy, visual identity, UX and UI design, rapid prototyping, content and social, and a full launch program. Flintler has delivered 300 plus projects for more than 200 clients, and the same playbook applied here.

Phase 1: Discovery that does the heavy lifting

Discovery prioritized three tracks: market truth, customer truth, and brand truth.

• Market truth focused on competitive mapping, channel performance, and social shopping behavior. Accenture’s global study forecasts social commerce will reach 1.2 trillion dollars by 2025, growing three times faster than traditional ecommerce, driven primarily by Gen Z and Millennials, which Accenture details in its report on why shopping is set for a social revolution. We treated Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube as not just media, but as shopping surfaces, and we mapped creator-led category narratives accordingly (Accenture newsroom).

• Customer truth combined qualitative interviews with existing customers and a review of behavioral analytics to define the moments that matter. The 2024 Edelman special report on brands and politics shows 60 percent of people buy or avoid based on politics, and 84 percent say they need to share values with a brand in order to buy. These findings raised the importance of a values-forward narrative across product pages and social intros (Edelman’s 2024 Brands and Politics report).

• Brand truth clarified heritage, product proof, and the unique promise. We looked for the overlap between what customers cared about and the differentiators the brand could defend.

Discovery outputs

• Research synthesis with category map, persona hypotheses, and motivation matrix

• Brand equity audit and sentiment themes from reviews and UGC

• Analytics baseline: conversion, bounce, time to value, cohort retention

Phase 2: Strategy that lines up decisions with outcomes

Strategy converted research into positioning, messaging, architecture, and channel plans. We wrote a sharp positioning statement, value pillars tied to proof, and a narrative arc that moves from problem to resolution with clear product outcomes. We also prioritized a social-plus-search strategy since content effectiveness depends on clarity and distribution.

Content program

We aligned with evidence that great content drives measurable outcomes. The Content Marketing Institute reports that 87 percent of B2B marketers credit content with creating brand awareness and 74 percent say it generated demand or leads in the last year, with video and short articles among the best-performing formats (CMI stats roundup). We translated this insight into a weekly cadence of authority pages, short-form social, and founder-led video explainers to activate trust.

Brand governance

Consistency is not a nice-to-have. Marq’s brand consistency research indicates that businesses with consistent branding realize up to 20 percent greater overall growth and 33 percent higher revenue compared to those with off-brand content, which Marq summarizes in its Brand Consistency report. We created a brand system and governance model that makes consistent execution easy: templates, tone guidelines, and asset libraries to keep internal teams and partners aligned.

Strategy outputs

• Positioning, messaging, voice and tone guide, and brand architecture

• Content strategy and channel plan with monthly themes and KPI map

• Brand governance and asset ops plan

Phase 3: Design that earns attention and builds trust

Design translated strategy into a modern identity system and friction-light digital experiences.

Visual identity

We created a unified logo suite, type and color system, motion guidelines, packaging rules, and a photography direction that emphasized natural light and product-in-use. The goal was recognizability at a glance and flexibility across social, retail, and DTC.

Product and site UX

We rebuilt the website around rapid comprehension, social proof, and fewer fields at checkout. The Baymard Institute’s ongoing research places the average cart abandonment at roughly 70 percent and shows 18 percent of shoppers abandoned an order in the last quarter due to a checkout that felt too long or complicated. Baymard’s benchmarks also show most checkouts expose around 23.5 form elements by default, while best practice can reduce that count by 20 to 60 percent (Baymard abandonment statistics). We set a specific goal to cut default fields by one third and surface total cost clarity earlier to reduce surprises that Baymard links to abandonment.

Design outputs

• Brand identity system and motion toolkit

• Responsive design system and component library

• High-fidelity prototypes for PDP, PLP, cart, and checkout

Phase 4: Refinement that compounds wins through iteration

Refinement is where creative courage meets empirical discipline. We built interactive prototypes, tested them with target users, and iterated weekly. Nielsen Norman Group’s guidance shows why this matters: measured usability can improve by an average of 38 percent per iteration, and programs that combine parallel and iterative design with competitive testing have achieved 152 percent higher measured usability than starting designs, as NN/g documents in its article on parallel and iterative design plus competitive testing (NN/g iterative design ROI).

What we tested

• First 5 seconds of PDP comprehension and value takeaway

• Add-to-cart clarity, variant selection, and price perception

• Checkout friction drivers, including address capture and payment mix

We also ran micro copy tests on consent and returns; Edelman shows consumers reward brands they trust and will protect trusted brands when mistakes happen, so clarity on returns, refunds, and exchanges supported trust-building from the outset (Edelman’s 2024 special report).

Refinement outputs

• Weekly usability learnings with prioritized issue list

• Revised prototypes and component specs

• Analytics event plan aligned to KPI learning loops

Phase 5: Launch that unites story, speed, and sales

A rebrand only lands if the launch connects the dots across channels and removes friction at the moment of purchase.

Website performance and conversion

Speed and stability are revenue levers. Deloitte’s “Milliseconds Make Millions” study, commissioned by Google, found that a 0.1 second improvement in mobile site speed increased retail conversions by 8.4 percent and travel conversions by 10.1 percent, with positive effects on average order value and bounce rates (Deloitte report). We set strict performance budgets, optimized media, deferred noncritical scripts, and monitored Core Web Vitals to protect conversion during and after the launch.

Commerce and channel activation

For the brand’s DTC relaunch, we recommended a modern commerce stack with a battle-tested checkout, robust app ecosystem, and native social integrations. If you are standing up or replatforming your storefront, Shopify is a pragmatic default for many growth-stage brands thanks to its ecosystem, payment options, and social commerce integrations. You can explore plans on Shopify. We paired the site with a CRM and lifecycle program to turn first purchase into second purchase with post-purchase education and renewal nudges.

Social and influencer plan

Accenture’s social commerce forecast reinforced our decision to activate creator partnerships that mirror how people discover and evaluate in-feed. We built creator briefs that center on outcomes, not scripts, and sequenced organic and paid to fuel momentum in the first four weeks post-launch (Accenture newsroom). We also used live shopping pilots to test whether short product deep-dives moved units in real time.

Launch outputs

• Coordinated brand rollout across site, packaging, retail assets, and social

• Creator activations, paid social, and search campaigns

• Lifecycle flows: welcome, education, replenishment, and win-back

KPIs and early results to validate the rebrand

Within the first 60 days, we focused on leading indicators, not vanity spikes.

• Brand lift: aided awareness and message association from post-campaign surveys

• Site performance: mobile LCP and CLS improvements paired with funnel progression

• Conversion: add-to-cart rate, checkout conversion rate, and payment mix shifts

• Trust: customer service ticket volume on returns and exchanges declined, and review velocity increased as the brand’s promise and proof appeared closer to the point of decision

While every category and execution varies, the mix of design rigor and iterative testing here is consistent with what the research says should happen when you remove friction and increase clarity. McKinsey’s work ties design excellence to outperformance, NN/g shows iterative testing compounds usability gains, Deloitte links speed with conversion, Baymard pinpoints checkout friction, and Edelman quantifies how trust and values shape purchase.

What made the difference

• Clear positioning and values alignment. The Edelman data made it essential to state what the brand stands for, then bring proof to every product page and social intro. We framed values without turning the brand into a political actor. The focus stayed on evidence and outcomes customers care about.

• Brand governance at scale. Consistency turned the identity system into revenue. The Marq research on brand consistency informed practical guardrails and asset ops that made on-brand execution the default, not the exception.

• Iteration before investment. NN/g’s evidence on iterative and parallel design pushed us to test more and guess less. We validated the first five seconds, the path to cart, and the hidden pinch points of checkout, then staged the build.

• Performance as a creative constraint. The Deloitte findings helped sell performance budgets as part of the brand. Fast is a feeling customers remember and reward.

• Channel-native commerce. Accenture’s forecast justified treating social as a shopping surface. We built creator briefs that help creators educate and convert, not just entertain.

How to apply this 5-phase model to your brand

Start with the outcomes you need the brand to achieve and work backward through the five phases. Hold your team to evidence at every step. If you are a startup or emerging brand, cut scope, not rigor: a lighter Discovery still identifies the moments that matter, and a focused Strategy still clarifies your promise and proof. If you are a growing or enterprise brand, invest in the asset ops and governance that make consistency automatic.

If you want a partner that blends world-class design with measurable marketing impact, meet the team at Flintler. The 5-phase process is designed to turn insight into identity and identity into growth, with transparent tiered pricing and a commitment to deliver 110 percent creativity in every engagement.