Walmart /Lantis Eyewear
The Challenge.
Lantis Eyewear came to us with a familiar problem: how do we stand out against stronger competitors on the same shelf? Foster Grant. Faded Glory. Established brands with more recognition and more real estate. Fighting for position wasn't working. We told them to stop fighting entirely.
The Insight.
Don't compete for the shelf. Own the room. A brand that controls the category environment doesn't have to win against its competitors — it hosts them. And a children's eyewear brand doesn't just need better design — it needs a reason to exist that parents actually care about. UV eye protection for children was a serious health need that nobody in mass retail was addressing seriously. That was the opening.
The Result.
Two interconnected platforms launched across Walmart locations in the United States and internationally across global Walmart markets. Zoogles became the defining brand in the youth eyewear segment. The Eyewear Emporium repositioned Lantis from competitor to category authority — the brand that built the room everyone else sold in.
The Strategy.
Zoogles — Building the kids' brand from zero. The brief wasn't to design a product. It was to build a world children would want to live in and parents would trust. Naming, identity, character system, packaging, and retail display were developed simultaneously so the brand could scale from a hang tag to a floor display without losing energy or legibility. Character illustrations were created in collaboration with Norman Gorbaty — art director at Benton & Bowles, Time magazine cover designer, and one of New York's most accomplished illustrators — then digitized and colored by Kelly Lee for retail production. Each pair of Zoogles sunglasses came with an attached plush animal character, making UV eye protection feel like play rather than a parental obligation. The display was designed to be its own destination — bright, immersive, and impossible to walk past.
Eyewear Emporium — Becoming the category. The larger strategic move was reframing what Lantis was entirely. Rather than asking Walmart for more shelf space, we proposed building a shop-in-shop environment that housed the entire eyewear category — Lantis brands, Zoogles, and yes, competitors too. Foster Grant. Faded Glory. All of them, under one roof that Lantis designed and owned. Floor-to-ceiling lifestyle murals — snowboarding, cycling, skating, fashion, UV protection — transformed what had been a rack into a destination. Shoppers didn't browse eyewear. They entered an experience. And every purchase made inside that experience, regardless of brand, happened on Lantis's terms. That's not competing. That's category leadership.