Protect your protein shakes. The Brawny Man is hunkier than ever
Brawny just went big on bulk. The Georgia-Pacific paper towel brand introduced a new logo set in a thicker font and breathed new life into its lumberjack mascot, the Brawny Man—all as part of a shift to stand out on store shelves and launch a new product, three-ply paper towels.
'We weren't just evolving a visual identity,' Amanda Earley, Georgia-Pacific's brand director for Brawny, tells Fast Company. 'We were launching a new product, shifting our full lineup, and repositioning the brand in culture, all while protecting what made Brawny special in the first place.'
Bringing all this to market at the same time was a challenge, Earley says, but necessary to achieve the company's overall goals: to grow household penetration, drive category growth, and convert the brand's entire portfolio from two-ply to three.
A bolder Brawny logo
The logo is one part of that. 'We modernized the logo to make it bolder, more confident, and unmistakably Brawny,' Earley says. The typographic beef up was also a strategic decision to 'signal product superiority at shelf, reinforce brand strength, and help us stand apart in a space that often feels like a sea of sameness,' she says.
Companies like Amazon, OpenAI, and Walmart have all recently made their logos bigger and bolder, but for Brawny, doing so was an imperative because of its brand promise. A paper towel brand that calls itself the strongest can't be set in a skinny font, especially after announcing plans to increase the ply of its products by 50%.
So the company made a few changes to indicate its new weight class. Its logo uses flat, bold, black-and-white letterforms, removing the red shadowing of the previous version. It's also now set on a firm horizontal instead of a slant. The logo type is sans serif, except for the letters B and A, which have serifs that extend like eaves on a rest stop or ranger station icon.
A bulked-up Brawny Man
Introduced in the 1970s, the Brawny Man has undergone multiple makeovers over the years and worn his facial hair in various ways—the brand even had Brawny women as part of a 2016 campaign.
In this newest iteration, the Brawny Man appears on packaging in the form of an illustration of a handsome, hunky outdoorsy type suitable for casting on The Bachelorette wearing his signature red-and-black plaid shirt. He appears oversize in new commercials, like Brawny's own Paul Bunyan—and he's eager to help clean up messes, whether they happen to be in the aftermath of a 40th birthday party or at a treehouse sleepover full of superstitious tween girls.
Too often brand mascots 'live frozen in time,' says Jaime Robinson, cofounder and chief creative officer at Joan Creative, which helped develop packaging and worked on the Brawny Man's refresh. 'When you have such legendary brand IP like the Brawny Man, you want to approach it thoughtfully but bravely,' Robinson says.
It was all about striking the right balance between familiarity and modernity, according to Holly Karlsson, creative director at Bulletproof, the agency that worked on Brawny's visual identity and packaging design. And by 'retaining his rugged dependability while evolving his personality to feel more authentic, warm, and human,' she says, Bulletproof hoped to do just that. The new Brawny Man is a gentle giant with a bold logo to match.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
21 minutes ago
- Forbes
Morgan Wallen Matches Justin Bieber And Jay-Z
Morgan Wallen scores 29 new Hot 100 hits thanks to his I'm the Problem album, tying Jay-Z and Justin ... More Bieber at 105 total entries in the process. Morgan Wallen performs the song "'98 Braves" at the 2023 Billboard Music Awards at Truist Park in Atlanta, Georgia. The show airs on November 19, 2023 on (Photo by Christopher Polk/Penske Media via Getty Images) Morgan Wallen is the king of the Hot 100 this week — and not just because he sits at No. 1. The superstar and Tate McRae debut their collaboration "What I Want" in first place, and the country superstar sends dozens of tracks from his latest album, I'm the Problem, to the tally. As a deluge of cuts from I'm the Problem reach the Hot 100, Wallen adds significantly to his career total of placements, passing an important milestone and tying with two of the most successful musicians of the past several decades. All 29 new appearances on the Hot 100 are taken from I'm the Problem. As those two dozen-plus tracks arrive, the singer-songwriter increases his career total to 105 placements on the roster, according to Billboard. With exactly 105 Hot 100 wins to his credit, Wallen is now tied with Justin Bieber and Jay-Z, who have also accrued just as many. Both of those artists had quite the head start and spent well over a decade accruing smashes before Wallen's career really took off. Neither has been particularly focused on music lately, so their sums haven't increased significantly in recent years. Thanks to I'm the Problem, Wallen has now snagged four No. 1 hits. Two of them — "Love Somebody" and the brand new "What I Want" with McRae — opened in first place. He also reached the summit with his solo hit "Last Night" taken from his previous album One Thing at a Time, and "I Had Some Help," his collaboration with Post Malone. In total, Wallen has landed 17 top 10 smashes, including nine from his latest full-length. The record for the most Hot 100 hits is still owned by Drake, and it may always be. He is up to 358 placements on the tally, nearly 100 more than the runner-up, Taylor Swift, who claims 264. Also included in this exclusive club, which now features 21 artists, are names like Future, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, The Weeknd, and Eminem.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
2 Nasdaq Stocks to Buy in June
Investors could be significantly underestimating Google's artificial intelligence capabilities. Amazon's cloud computing business continues to show monster growth potential. 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet › It's not surprising that the Nasdaq Composite's return of 275% outpaces the S&P 500 return of 178% over the last 10 years. The Nasdaq is full of tech-centric companies that are driving change and innovation in the economy, which is where you'll find stocks with monster growth potential. While the stock market got off to a shaky start this year, there are good opportunities to buy shares of dominant tech firms at attractive valuations. Here are two stocks that can deliver great returns in the coming years. Shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) have surged in recent weeks. The company formerly known as Google and home of the famed search engine (among other products) has been weighed down amid increasing competition, fears a recession could slow the advertising market, and the possibility of a court-ordered breakup. But these concerns are well reflected in the stock's modest valuation. Alphabet delivered double-digit growth in revenue and earnings over the last decade. The stock doubled over the last five years and still trades at a modest forward price-to-earnings multiple of 18. That is a bargain for a business with billions of users across popular services like Gmail, YouTube, and Google Search. One of the chief concerns for investors right now is Google's competitive position in search, which generates 56% of the company's revenue. OpenAI's ChatGPT and other leading artificial intelligence (AI) models can function like search engines with a brain, and that is a threat to Google's long-dominant position in the search market. However, Google has very capable AI technology. It built world-class AI infrastructure with a large footprint of data centers, including investment in its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) for AI workloads. The company also turned heads last fall when it unveiled its Willow chip for quantum computing. The latest version of its Gemini large language model is the top-ranked model on Chatbot Arena's leaderboard at the time of writing. Gemini powers all seven of the company's products with over 2 billion users. These achievements reflect a massive war chest of resources at the company's disposal. Over the last year, Alphabet generated $75 billion in free cash flow on $360 billion of annual revenue, and analysts expect its earnings per share to grow 15% on an annualized basis over the long term. Alphabet's investments in data centers, Gemini, and cloud services are laying the foundation for tremendous growth over the long term. These assets will lead to better services for consumers while also positioning Google to capture a large share of a $1 trillion AI opportunity. These prospects make the stock a compelling buy on the dip. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) stock had a great run over the past few years. Since bottoming out in 2022, the stock soared to new highs, rising 144% and outperforming the Nasdaq's return of 83%. Amazon continues to show solid growth in revenue, while cost reduction efforts in its retail business and growth in cloud computing are helping the business convert more revenue into cool profits. Amazon is in a league of its own when it comes to e-commerce -- its largest business. Revenue from online stores grew 6% year over year in the first quarter to $57 billion, as management saw sales of everyday essentials grow twice as fast as the rest of the business. A healthy number of Prime members are clearly relying on Amazon more, which is strengthening its competitive moat. One of the best reasons to consider buying the stock is Amazon's opportunity in cloud computing. Amazon is making cloud services more cost-effective for businesses with its range of hardware and software solutions. Amazon Web Services currently sits at the top of the $348 billion cloud computing market. Over the last year, it generated $112 billion in revenue, with quarterly revenue up 17% year over year in the first quarter. Amazon's cloud opportunity is massive. It is seeing triple-digit growth for AI services, where it offers tools to help companies build their own AI-based applications. Growing demand for cloud services will significantly grow the value of Amazon's business over the long term, as Amazon Web Services generates most of the company's operating profit. Management believes AWS could generate hundreds of billions in revenue over the long term. Recent demand trends certainly point to AWS becoming a bigger piece of Amazon's business, which is a catalyst for the stock. The stock trades at 33 times trailing earnings. For a business that could see many more years of double-digit earnings growth, Amazon investors could be looking at more market-beating returns. Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Alphabet wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $651,049!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $828,224!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 979% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Ballard has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 2 Nasdaq Stocks to Buy in June was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
35 minutes ago
- Forbes
Walmart, Amazon, Costco, And Home Depot Tackle The Tariff Whiplash
Coscto is focused on member pricing and plans to try and mitigate as much of the impact from tariffs ... More as it can for its customers. (Photo by) The five largest retailers in the U.S -- Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Kroger, and Home Depot-- have all reported their financial earnings for the first part of 2025. The combined force of these retailers equates to nearly 20% of total retail sales in the United States. The big five retailers all agree that it is difficult to predict the future impact of tariffs, however, each retailer has been working on mitigating the impact of tariffs on pricing and product availability for its consumers. The impact of tariffs on financial reporting so far this year has been minimal because most of the earnings reported are from periods before the April 5th tariffs took effect. Home Depot and Walmart shared financials through the end of April, while Costco data goes through mid-May. Kroger, which operates over 20 store banners including Ralphs and Harris Teeter, reported financials through January. Amazon's first quarter financials run through March. Walmart, Amazon,Costco and Home Depot have pulled forward their inventory purchases to mitigate the impact of tariffs. Purchasing inventory in advance will help ensure a company has product in stock down the line and can offer the best possible pricing. Amazon encouraged its third-party suppliers to do the same. Costco moved up the delivery for patio products and sporting goods to stay ahead of the tariff pricing impacts. While Walmart says it cannot absorb all the cost pressures from tariffs and may have to raise ... More prices, it wants to keep food prices as low as they can. (Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Even the U.S.'s largest retailers cannot take the sole burden of the tariffs by absorbing the costs without raising prices. Discount stores, grocery stores, ecommerce players, and warehouse clubs typically run on very thin profit margins. "We're positioned to manage the cost pressure from tariffs as well or better than anyone. But even at the reduced levels, the higher tariffs will result in higher prices," said Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart. The magnitude of the tariffs cannot be offset by lower-margin businesses. Home improvement giant Home Depot plans to maintain its competitive pricing despite tariff impacts through stronger supplier partnerships, supply chain diversification, and focusing on improving its productivity across activities. 'We don't see broad-based price increases for our customers at all going forward. It's a great opportunity for us to take share, and it's a great opportunity for our suppliers to take share as well,' said Billy Bastek, executive vice president of merchandising at Home Depot. In the grocery sector, where food prices are 2.0% higher on a rolling 12-month basis, consumers are already having to spend more based on inflation. Companies like Walmart are trying to protect against additional costs due to tariffs on food products, considered a non-discretionary expense. 'We won't let tariff-related cost pressure on some general merchandise items put pressure on food prices, " said McMillon. Food tariffs on countries in South and Central America are pressuring imported items like bananas, avocados, coffee, and flowers. 'We'll do our best to control what we can control in order to keep food prices as low as possible," said McMillon. Costco held pricing on pineapples and bananas despite the cost of these goods rising due to tariffs. However, when it came to flowers, which were also impacted by additional tariffs, the company felt that a price increase was absorbable by the consumer as flower purchases were viewed as a discretionary expense. Kroger, with 100% of its sales in the U.S., is looking at being proactive and diversifying its supplier base to keep prices lower, especially in the fresh produce category. "We expect inflation to be 1.5% to 2.5%, which does not include the effects from tariffs," said Todd Foley earlier in the year, interim CFO at Kroger. Amazon customers are becoming more reliant on the company for everyday essential products which ... More represented one out of every three units sold in the U.S. online at Amazon in the first quarter. Global retailers have been looking at diversifying sourcing options to reduce the cost of goods as tariffs are implemented. Amazon and Walmart have been diversifying their supply chains for many years, with a focus on not being too reliant on one country for imports. Two-thirds of what Walmart sells in the U.S. is made, assembled, or grown domestically. Walmart is further diversifying its revenue by leaning into better profit areas such as selling advertising through its retail media network, expanding its marketplace, and increasing membership income. Costco is rerouting goods to non-U.S. markets and working closely with suppliers to find alternate production locations. The private label brand, Kirkland Signature, which represents one-third of Costco's sales, continues to be a consumer favorite in quality and value. The company has been sourcing the products into countries where items are sold to keep the pricing down. Costco's most profitable sector, its membership revenue, is up 5.4%, with membership increasing to 137 million members last year despite a rise in its membership price. Home Depot has diversified its supply chain, with over 50% of purchases already sourced in the U.S. 'We anticipate that twelve months from now, no single country outside of the United States will represent more than 10% of our purchases," said Ted Decker, CEO of Home Depot. Amazon is relentlessly focused on back-of-house infrastructure to improve delivery speeds and reduce costs by heavily investing in robotics and automation. The purchasing of everyday essentials continues to grow as a category for the consumer, making them more reliant on the Amazon brand and includes categories such as household goods, personal care items, and pantry staples. "We have an extremely large selection, hundreds of millions of unique SKUs (stock keeping units), which means we're often able to weather challenging conditions better than others. When you have the broadest selection like we do and 2,000,000 plus global sellers like we do, you're better positioned to help customers find whatever items matter to them at lower price points than elsewhere," said Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon. However, Costco's narrow merchandise depth and broad assortment allow the company to focus on fewer SKUs, giving it a competitive advantage. "We believe our expertise in buying a limited SKU count model gives us greater agility to navigate the environment and ultimately increase our member values compared to the market," said Gary Millerchip, CFO at Costco. Home Depot will be looking at SKU optimization and possibly editing out some products that are significantly impacted by tariff costs but do not make sense to keep in its current assortment. Other retailers outside the big five have been working on optimizing the product styles that are most relevant to their customer base and eliminating the ones that are too costly or have lower turnover. As we move into the second quarter for most retailers (May through July), pricing may not be as impacted because retail buyers usually procure goods many months in advance of the selling season. However, going into fall and holiday selling, consumers may see price increases just in time for holiday purchasing. With imported items, the tariff is paid at the time it comes through customs, which means those products are most likely not in the U.S. yet. Retailers are unable to predict pricing for later in the year due to the uncertainty of where tariffs will land. There are too many assumptions and factors for retailers to chart a specific path forward during these highly unpredictable times in the retail landscape. The big five retailers continue to model various scenarios to help mitigate price increases or out-of-stocks for their customer base. The advantage with the larger multi-billion dollar retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Kroger, and Home Depot is the ability to leverage supplier networks and lean into the amount of resources available to help build out more sophisticated infrastructure to support a diversified supply network. The retailers are working hard to make sure prices stay in line with customer expectations, but it is too early within a volatile tariff landscape to predict the actual impact on pricing for consumers for the remainder of the year.
