Bringing Brand Thinking Into a Performance-First Retail Environment
Brand positioning, creative strategy, retail marketing, operational planning, partnerships
The Opportunity
Amazon’s physical retail formats — Amazon Books and Amazon 4-Star — were built on powerful customer data and operational efficiency. But awareness was low, emotional connection was limited, and the in-store experience hadn’t yet converted Amazon’s digital strengths into physical retail relevance.
At the same time, the culture was deeply performance-driven. Brand marketing wasn’t yet viewed as a growth lever — it had to earn its place by proving impact.
The opportunity was to bring brand thinking into physical retail in a way that respected Amazon’s rigor: building clearer positioning, warmer creative, and more human experiences — while driving measurable acquisition, conversion, and revenue.
The Strategy
Use insight-led brand storytelling to make Amazon’s stores feel more discoverable and emotionally engaging, while applying performance discipline to everything from creative to media to seasonal planning. The goal wasn’t to choose between brand and performance — it was to show they work better together.
The Work
Repositioning the Brand Inside Physical Retail
Led brand positioning and storefront creative frameworks for both Amazon Books and Amazon 4-Star — translating Amazon’s data-driven DNA into warmer, more human retail experiences. For Amazon Books, we repositioned the store around inspiration and discovery, then redesigned storefront creative to reflect that shift — moving away from purely functional messaging toward warmer, more expressive storytelling that invited people in and helped demystify the concept.
For Amazon 4-Star, we clarified the brand’s role as a discovery destination — a curated shortcut to products customers could trust — and updated storefront creative to make that promise instantly legible. Bold, playful design paired with ratings and reviews reduced decision fatigue and gave shoppers a clear reason to walk in.
Creative concepts were tested to understand what actually motivated entry. The strongest territories significantly increased signage appeal and visit intent, particularly among target customers — reinforcing that clear positioning brought to life through storefront creative drove the best response.
Together, these efforts refreshed the physical retail brand experience and contributed to increasing acquisition by 12%, reducing CPAs by 50%. and increasing brand awareness by 5 pts.
Orchestrating Holiday at Scale
Led end-to-end holiday planning across Amazon’s physical retail organization — coordinating marketing, merchandising, operations, store leadership, and corporate teams around a single, integrated seasonal plan. This included building readiness frameworks, aligning field and HQ priorities, sequencing launches, and operationalizing a unified in-store experience (“Amazon Express / Wishlist Wonderland”) across dozens of locations. The effort required aligning hundreds of stakeholders across a 500+ person organization — balancing customer experience with operational rigor during peak.