Case study
BAT Canada: Designing Presence in a Dark Market
- Role
- Senior creative leadership across 11 projects spanning retail environments, display and merchandising, event and festival activations, product and industrial design, and brand and retail strategy.
- Client
- BAT Canada. Brands: Vuse, VELO, Vype, iGLO. Period: 2016 to 2023.
The problem
Canada runs one of the strictest dark-market regimes in the world. Almost every conventional branding lever (logos, advertising, public product display) is restricted or banned in retail and public space. BAT Canada needed senior creative continuity that could shape brand presence when the brand itself could not be shown.
The solution
Over seven years, Raemer Studio carried one senior creative voice across the account. Form, material, proportion, and spatial choreography were used to do the work logos normally do. Each touchpoint (retail displays, festival activations, store environments, product accessories) was designed to navigate strict regulatory rules while still building a recognisable experience system.
The result
Eleven shipped projects across four brands, with a single creative through-line. The work proves what continuity of senior creative leadership produces in a constrained market: fewer handoff failures, a tighter visual and spatial vocabulary, and a repeatable approach to dark-market retail and activation.