ECommerce Brand Regains Foothold in Response to a Changing Society

As a 10-year-old brand in trasnition, ThinkGeek was facing immense pressure to grow. With new leadership in place—there was a lot to prove.

ThinkGeek, which sells licensed and proprietary products with a geeky sensibility was facing a crisis of irrelevancy. The old definition of ‘geek’ – a marginalizing, cliched insult based on a decades-old stereotype – had been transcended in the culture and the brand needed to reflect this in order to resume its growth path. 

Finch Brands conducted qualitative and quantitative research to understand the consumer and get ready for the next stage of life for the brand. 

This brand needed to be authentic to strengthen its relationships with customers (and staff). We rebuilt the ThinkGeek brand – with an updated consumer segmentation, renovated Purpose, Mission and Values, an evolved logo/tagline redesign, and packaging evolution.

We found that society's notion of a 'Geek' had changed.

“Geek” has turned into a more positive, energetic definition of a passionate and culturally relevant person who ‘geeks out’ to connect with his/her passions. The new logo uses a light scifi font to anchor it in its space. The tagline uses ‘geek’ as a verb and invites everybody in. Furthermore, the geek universe is not monolithic. We used research to build the company's first consumer segmentation to drive marketing and product development.

At the time the brand re-launched, ThinkGeek’s stock was trading at $11 per share. Less than a year later, ThinkGeek was acquired by GameStop at $20 per share. While we can’t take full credit, the energy and momentum of the brand was cited as one of the drivers of the bidding war that led to ThinkGeek’s acquisition.