For decades, Smoothie King spoke to guests through fitness: strong visuals, gym-inspired copy, a focus on performance. That fit a brand built around workouts and training. But health has moved past the weight room. Since the pandemic, wellness has come to include mental and emotional care, rest, creativity, and connection, a balance of body, mind, and spirit. The question for Smoothie King wasn't whether to notice this shift. It was how to meet guests inside of it to appeal to a wider range of health-conscious guests.
Growth also meant working within a franchise system: balancing investment with local ownership, consistency with each community's character. Smoothie King needed a clear, shared sense of what mattered most to guests, no matter who owned the store or which city it was in.
To understand health on guests' own terms, we went where the answers were. We traveled to established and emerging markets, including Dallas, Atlanta, and Denver, training behind the counter and visiting guests at home to see what health looked like day to day. We asked guests to build their ideal smoothie shop with color swatches, materials, stickers, lighting, and even scent, then brought each one to a real Smoothie King for a dine-along, comparing the two. Smoothie King's executive team joined the research in the field, seeing their brand through guests' eyes first-hand. In total, we conducted ethnographic and in-home interviews with 21 guests and 18 team members across three markets.
“My idea of health has changed over time. Of course turning 30 has created a higher importance than when I was in my 20s. It means taking care of my mental and physical being so that I could be my best self for as long as possible.”
Kristi, Smoothie King Guest
Smoothie King's product is genuinely healthier than the category: fresher ingredients, more protein, whole non-GMO fruits and organic vegetables, a long "no bad stuff" list. But guests weren't giving it credit. Little in the store, experience, or presentation signaled health. Trust depended on cues guests could see, not claims on a label or in marketing.
To guests, every smoothie brand feels convenient and healthy. Asked what made Smoothie King different, most couldn't say. Chasing convenience and fitness had put the brand on par with the category, not above it, and the experience felt transactional. Real differentiation would come from what guests kept describing and not finding: an experience and brand that felt like it genuinely cared about their health, not just convenience.
“Foods you can pronounce that are not, like, engineered foods. Those feel like they are the most healthy. Something that I could go to the store right now buy myself.”
Lisa, Smoothie King Guest
Grounded in the research, we helped Smoothie King write a new vision statement centered on one goal: nurturing guests' healthy habits, on their own terms. From there, we built experience principles and a playbook that puts care into every touchpoint: what a guest sees at the counter, the language on the menu, the moments of discovery built into a visit. The playbook translates into a tactical roadmap, giving teams a clear path from vision to execution.
Smoothie King acted almost immediately, standing up internal teams to bring the vision to life: a rebrand refreshing visual and verbal identity, a store design team warming up interiors, a retail task force updating in-store products, a menu redesign with Other Tomorrows to simplify guest decisions, and a digital team updating the app and online ordering. Other Tomorrows stayed connected across every effort, carrying the research and vision through to every touchpoint. Smoothie King also kicked off a team member experience project with Other Tomorrows to ensure the brand cares for its team members with the same thoughtfulness it brings to its guests.
