Brand Makeovers: Three Lessons in Reinvention

Today, Target features products by celebrity designers like Michael Graves, Liz Lang and Isaac Mizrahi. The brand's high-style doesn't stop at clothes and housewares. The wide aisles, clean displays, cherry-red signature color throughout the stores and marketing materials speak to the brand's design consciousness. The food courts are home to another fashion-forward brand, Starbucks (SBUX Quote), and the cosmetics department is anchored by a house brand by celebrity makeup artist Sonia Kashuk -- solidifying the brand's department store feel.

Jack in the Box: Damage Control

Six months after food poisoning killed four Jack in the Box diners and sickened hundreds, sales were down 40%. Two years later, a makeover saved the company, whose revenue has tripled since 1995.

Patrick Adams, managing director at Secret Weapon Marketing, the Santa Monica, Calif., firm that created the advertising campaign credited with much of the makeover's success, says the comeback strategy was three-fold: fess up, fix the problem, come back with a new image.

"They went way beyond the rules in place to prove they were serious about fixing the problem," Adams says.

Immediately after the outbreak, Jack in the Box held press conferences and was responsive to reporters' questions about investigations into the contaminated food. Then, the company implemented a complex food safety program designed by NASA -- an effort that helped earn the chain a health safety award from the state of California.

Jack in the Box began to thrive once Secret Weapon Marketing came in 18 months after the catastrophe and suggested advertising efforts be geared toward the largest target consumer group: young men, who make up the bulk of fast food sales. The resulting, irreverent ads featuring a cheeky, "slightly pissed off" clown "broke all conventions of fast food advertising," Adams says. The target demographic loved them.

Emma Johnson writes the MSN Money multimedia series "Launch your Life" which explores personal finance topics for people in their 20s and 30s.