Reverse engineering a parent brand

Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) is a New York hospitality institution with a famous founder and CEO (Danny Meyer). It needed to reverse engineer its parent brand to capitalize on a myriad of growth opportunities.

Challenge
The organization was undergoing a cultural shift, partly due to the great success of Shake Shack, and this required a cultural reset and a re-think of the overall organization design. USHG had enormous equity in its consumer facing restaurant brands and businesses it owned, but needed to better capture the equity in its parent brand – USHG. In addition, we needed to demonstrate meaningful growth ambition to attract and retain the best people.

What We Did
We defined the USHG parent brand by designing the brand architecture of the combined assets and equity across thirteen brands and businesses. Critical to it’s success was articulating the company’s mission and clarifying its unique qualities to help guide the growing number of employees, brands and businesses.

We then brought the brand architecture and strategy to life with a new visual and verbal identity – reimagined in a new digital ecosystem consisting of several frontend websites connected on top of a common backend.

Impact
• Provided a meaningful articulation for the USHG brand
• Positioned all brands for optimal growth potential
• Created a universal brand language that speaks in one voice, with multiple dialogues, to multiple audiences.

"We hired Jared’s company, Velo, to help us build a brand identity – one that would work harder for us across a range of businesses. His curiosity and determination to understand our organization, our team and our family values – and then to reduce it down to its essence and create a unified vision going forward was just what we needed. Beautifully done."
Danny Meyer, CEO, Union Square Hospitality Group