The crew at Collins
When the Girl Scouts of America wanted to reinvigorate its brand for a new generation of members—and move away from an over-association with cookies—it turned to Collins. The shop helped the organization lean into a new identity as an “Experiential Learning Platform,” emphasizing critical skills in areas such as engineering, cybersecurity, robotics and math. Collins also worked to create a new brand language, including workbooks, uniforms and merchandise.
“Our transformation work has become critical to our clients because of its double impact,” Leland Maschmeyer, Collins co-founder and CEO, wrote in an email, resulting in increasing valuations and more productive revenue and profit-driving. “As we move our clients into better futures, we don’t see our task as helping them become ‘a challenger brand’ or even ‘the best.’ Our job is to make them the ‘only.’”
Indeed, last year McKenzie Scott gave the Girl Scouts an $84.5 million donation to further its STEM-building activities.
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It’s just one example of the work that Collins, which began as a design agency, has been spearheading for brands as it evolved into a transformation consultancy. The 15-year-old agency grew its revenue 16% in 2021 to $14.8 million and was expected to grow another 35% to reach $20 million in 2022. Collins says it won 29 pieces of business last year, including high-profile clients including Nike, YouTube and Nickelodeon. It also created a partnership with asset investor Blackstone to work on its portfolio of brands, including Therma Holdings.
In 2022, Collins also reevaluated its revenue mix—it piloted a new model it calls an “impact level agreement” that includes what it calls “recurring monthly payments for serial transformation work.” The agency said this helps clients with flexibility and adds incentives—it also helps create a more predictable cost structure for brands, which are also free to cancel the agreement anytime without penalty. Such agreements contributed to more than a quarter of Collins’ revenue last year.
Another chunk of revenue—about 16%—came from Collins’ “Resilient Futures” pilot, in which the agency works with companies that specifically incorporate the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. Collins works with Applegreen on energy transition and Square Roots on regenerative farming, for example.
The agency recently reorganized its expertise into five practice areas—strategic planning, business transformation, brand transformation, change management and go-to-market design.
“Though we changed our positioning in 2022, becoming a transformation consultancy, our maniacal obsession remains the same: shipping incredible design at incredible scale,” Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer Brian Collins wrote in an email.
