Walk through your friendly neighborhood Target and you’re sure to experience a veritable street fight in the aisle between brands on top of their game. Cool brands, hip brands, brands for moms, brands with a heart, big brands, brands that are good for the earth, brands you’ve grown up with – all battling it out for your attention and your dollars.

And one of the best brands you’ll encounter at Target is, in fact, Target.

It’s never labeled as such, obviously, because Target has realized that it can gain more strategic value by creating house brands targeted (forgive the pun) towards specific shopping categories, not the entire store. Rather than populate every aisle with same looking generic packages featuring the store brand, Target has cultivated a rich assortment of brands that go straight after what users need, want and desire. Step into the candy aisle and you’ll discover a colorful candy brand named Choxie (by Target). Walk down the auto aisle and you’ll see twenty feet of brushes, sponges, hose attachments and polishing cloths under the Vroom brand name (guess who?). Target has changed the game on their house brands, because they don’t feel like house brands anymore – they’ve become good products people just want. And the important point is that structuring house brands this way helps differentiate Target from its retail competitors. Unique products create unique aisle experiences, and unique aisles means Target doesn’t feel like Wal-Mart and the rest.

Which brings me to their latest creation, Up & Up.

Target developed Up & Up as the new brand name for household consumables like paper towels, diapers and disposable dishware.  Gone is the Target bullseye and clean, generic brand package. In its place is a new brand with a more modern look and feel. The reasons for change make sense to me…

What I don’t get is why Target abandoned the street fighter mentality that has worked so successfully for them in other parts of the store – taking on the big guys aisle by aisle. For some reason they didn’t create new, distinct brands around baby, food storage, cleaning, beauty, and the rest. They just made one big brand to try and cover an entire corner of the store. But the rub is that these are unique categories, with unique dynamics and unique shopper needs.

Too unique for just one brand to satisfy?

Did Target miss a big one here?

I’m sure that folks like P&G, J&J and Method are sure hoping so.

My wife recently gave birth to our second baby. Because I was not a basket case about the imminent arrival of this child, as I was with baby number 1, I had the clarity of mind to take it all in. So, instead of going into the experience as a new dad, to the chagrin of my wife, I went into it as an observer. My biggest takeaway was how the delivery room changed modes over the course of the delivery and how this can minimize levels of anxiety.

When you enter the delivery room for the first time, it almost feels like a hotel room. As the the delivery begins, doors and slots start to open to reveal the apparatus of delivery. One cabinet slides open to offer all of the anesthesiologist tools, the other opens up to show a heart rate monitor. A seemingly ambiguous cart opens up to reveal the tools of the obstetrician trade, and then the bed transforms and lights drop from recessed panels on the ceiling. The transformation is impressive, and if we had walked into the room in this mode, I don’t think my wife could have gone through with it.

Overall, the design of the room was a great way to use modal transformation as an anxiety reducing tool.

In order to bring the complete vision for the Sprint Studio to life, Sprint and Continuum partnered with their photographer Ron Eshel and German light artists from Lichtfaktor. Working collaboratively in two adjacent photography studios, the team captured both lifestyle photography as well as time lapse imagery of actual light in motion. The resulting images help to elevate the Sprint Studio above the status quo and engage the consumer in a truly amazing retail experience.

Check out this light art. Really amazing stuff.

I just returned from something that is new in the world of brand experience–the opening of the new Sprint Studio Store in Kansas City, a project we have worked closely with Sprint and other design partners on for over two years. The store is located in the “up and coming” neighborhood of Kansas City called the Power and Light District.

The turnout has been amazing, there’s a huge buzz. Why are people so interested in these studio and concept stores? It’s all about experience, and a store like this provides a new one for consumers. Not just for the wireless industry, but for retail in general.

These stores are first and foremost great for consumers—they provide that neighborhood feel and sense of belonging, they provide a very cool place to play, talk with customer service, and check out new products and capabilities. It is an invitation to become something special and unique.

These studio store and concept experience type endeavors are also great for brands; to engender brand loyalty and drive purchase decisions, to increase the mental and emotional footprint of a brand to a community and an audience.

While previous retail stores are generally “experiential” in name only (i.e. Samsung Experience Store, Verizon Experience Store), the Sprint Studio delivers a true experience to consumers by presenting the innovation behind the Sprint brand in fresh, new and exciting ways.

And if you are in Kansas City-stop by.