Levain cookies brought me and my mom closer
A running joke in my family is how nobody has really understood what I did for a living so everyone just said I designed websites. This was odd since prior to 2024 I’ve never really done that but explaining Human-Computer Interaction Design was always a chore (the weirder thing is how designing websites also somehow tells your family that you’re the grandson/son/nephew who will fix your printer, but I digress).
Now, to be fair, my mother has probably always understood what I did. But when I shifted from running design at a product agency to building a gtm and brand agency, I struggled to explain to her why I made the shift. But this past Christmas, a humble gift of cookies from Levain Bakery did all that work for me.
Here in Indianapolis we have no shortage of cookie shops (as evidenced by the fact that we also are home to the future GLP-1 pills). And cookies themselves are just so good, it’s hard to really differentiate them from each other. This is where Levain separates themselves from the rest. The beautiful tin, inside a beautiful, custom blue box is like the Tiffany’s of sugar:
When my mother opened this on Christmas, she was delighted before she even tried the cookies. And thus, Levain, in one simple unboxing, communicated what I do now. She understood immediately.
My mother knew the cookies would be amazing before taking a bite. How?! The care taken with the brand…the packaging…the simple instructions, all set the expectation. Additionally, Levan’s distinct illustrations of NYC felt very NYC. It felt more exotic than the Crumbl and Dirty Dough cookies that populate Indianapolis suburbs (sorry, no shade intended). At the risk of sounding cheesy, the box genuinely felt like a piece of New York.
Now all this falls apart if the cookie sucks (it doesn’t). Often companies want to let their product or service speak for itself and miss an opportunity to delight outside the experience. The cookie’s taste leaves an impression on the consumer’s taste buds, but the brand is what takes up space in the consumers’ mind. And that’s very valuable real estate. That’s what changes a loyal customer into an evangelist.
I wrote the first draft of this article soon after Christmas. But in the several months since then, my mother has bought several more tins for family and to share with friends. So if there’s any doubt what type of impact brand and packaging can have on sales, I offer this as a modern brand fairy tale that starts with love and ends with ROI.
