I led the brand and design strategy grounded in a simple shift: cookies are just the excuse. That insight didn’t come from a brief. It came from standing in a parking lot and actually watching the interaction play out. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once we aligned around it, everything changed. We moved away from product-first messaging and toward the moment of the ask. The interaction. The slightly awkward, very human exchange that’s actually doing the work. Photography shifted from perfect product shots to real moments. Real kids. Real interactions. Messaging focused less on flavors and more on what’s happening around the sale—confidence, effort, progress.

We also made a deliberate call not to over-polish it. The system had been trending toward safe and “brand correct,” but that stripped out the thing that made it real. So we created space for individuality and ownership instead. Less control, more truth. Because this program isn’t about consistency. It’s about growth.

The result is a brand that feels more like what the Cookie Program actually is. Not just something you buy, but something you participate in. ABC Bakers saw increased engagement and sales across their product line. But the bigger shift was perceptual. The cookies stopped being the point. They became what they always were—the mechanism for something much more important.