The Business Problem
Retail sales were down. Millennials, the growth audience Newell Brands needed, were shopping in ways the existing home fragrance experience wasn't built for. They valued experiences over things. They expected brands to earn their attention, not just occupy shelf space. A traditional candle display wasn't going to cut it anymore.
Millennials need a more modernized home fragrance shopping experience because they value experiences over things. Retail sales are declining.
Who Was Involved
Brought strategic framing and cross-brand context to the challenge.
Owned the Yankee Candle brand voice and target audience brief.
Provided operational knowledge of retail environment constraints.
Shaped the physical environment and installation design.
Executed the physical build-out of the pop-up experience.
Executive sponsor who championed and funded the initiative.
Innovation Strategist & Visual Design Lead
I served as the visual lead on this project. An active, embedded participant in the creative process who set the design direction and provided the guardrails that kept the experience coherent from concept to build-out.
The physical execution was brought to life by agencies hired to construct and produce the pop-up. My role was to direct them: translating the creative vision into concrete design guidelines, reviewing work against the brief, and ensuring every decision stayed true to the brand story we were trying to tell.
Being an active participant throughout, not just a reviewer at key gates, meant design intent didn't get lost in handoffs. I was in the room where the concept was shaped, and then directing the hands that built it.
The Reframe
The instinct was to sell fragrance better. We reframed it: what if we stopped selling and started transporting? Scent is one of the most powerful memory-making senses humans have. Instead of describing fragrance, we designed an environment that let people experience what a scent could make them feel, then connected that feeling back to the brand.
An Instagrammable NYC pop-up to build awareness of Newell Brands' home fragrance portfolio, drive trial, and engage new consumers, meeting Millennials where they live: in experiences worth sharing.
What Success Looked Like
Put the home fragrance portfolio in front of a Millennial audience that hadn't been actively seeking it.
Get people to engage with fragrance in a way that felt personal, not transactional.
Design spaces worth photographing so the experience extended far beyond the four walls.
Create something compelling enough that press and trend forecasters would cover it organically.
Phase 1 — Empathy: A Trend Trek Through NYC
Before designing anything, we went out into the city. Our team conducted a trend trek through New York, observing and documenting retail experiences, cultural signals, and the environments people actually chose to spend time in. We were looking for what made people stop, linger, and share.
- 18 participants organized into four collaborative teams
- 35+ stores, restaurants, pop-ups, and service experiences
- 3 future-state 5E Customer Experience Maps to guide strategic experience design opportunities
Phase 2 — Ideation: The 5E Framework
We structured our ideation around the 5E Framework, a journey model that considers every phase of the consumer experience, from the moment they discover the pop-up to long after they've left it. This discipline kept us from designing a room and reminded us we were designing an arc. Engage was a deep focus area.
How do we get Millennials to notice, stop, and want in?
What's the first moment? How does the brand declare itself?
What do people do? How do they interact with fragrance?
How do they leave? What do they take with them, physically and emotionally?
How does the experience live on, in posts, in memory, in future purchases?
Phase 3 — The Launched Experience: Candle Power
The result was Candle Power, a surrealist-inspired NYC pop-up featuring immersive graphics and interactive installations built around Yankee Candle's signature fragrances. Each space was designed to show the power of scent to transform and transport. Not just pleasant. Transportive.
It Worked, and Then Some
