Aramark Destinations Case Study
Brand Strategy | Competitive Audit | Architecture | Naming | Positioning
Overview
Aramark Destinations manages a national portfolio of over 100 experiential properties — lodges, resorts, and destination experiences spanning some of America's most iconic landscapes. The brand had grown organically over time, resulting in a rich but disparate collection of experiences without an organizing principle to unify them or a positioning platform to guide growth.
The Approach
I led senior executive interviews, a competitive audit mapping the experiential travel landscape, and a series of stakeholder workshops where findings were pressure-tested and the critical architecture decisions were made.
The research surfaced a consistent insight: what made these properties remarkable wasn't the landscapes — it was the people. That human element became the strategic foundation.
The key decision — and the real strategic win of this engagement — was the recommendation to adopt a program brand model rather than a portfolio model. A program brand holds the full range of properties under a unified promise while giving each experience the flexibility to express that promise in its own authentic way. That insight unlocked the architecture.
A strategic foundation that for the first time gave the portfolio a coherent identity — and a clear answer to the program vs. portfolio question. A unified brand architecture and positioning platform for a new consumer-facing program brand. Naming strategy informing a new identity and brand expression.