Beautiful work, rigorously measured.

How we tested a brand magazine to prove that premium storytelling drives customer loyalty — and got the data to back it up.

Square had always presented itself differently from other payment companies. The design was considered, the brand language was human, and the storytelling centred on the businesses it served, not the technology powering them. Over the years, that approach had generated an extraordinary library of visuals and narratives.

In 2019, a cross-functional team from Creative, Communications, and Marketing came together to ask a simple question: what's the best use of everything we've built? The answer was The Reader — a brand magazine designed not just as a piece of brand expression, but as a measurable test of whether beautiful storytelling actually moves customers.

THE CHALLENGE: Brand affinity is one of the hardest things to measure in content. You can track opens, clicks, and conversions — but whether a piece of content makes someone feel meaningfully different about a brand requires deliberate methodology. We wanted to know if The Reader worked, not just whether people liked it.

THE APPROACH: We developed the magazine as an evergreen asset — a mix of seller profiles and educational content, some written specifically for the issue and some repurposed from existing digital content. QR codes connected print readers back to the website, extending the experience and creating a measurable bridge between the physical and digital.

We sent the issue to 1,500 existing customers, then followed up with a survey designed to isolate the magazine's specific impact on brand affinity — not just general satisfaction. The methodology was as deliberate as the design.

Beyond the test cohort, The Reader found additional purpose: at industry events and in the hands of the sales team, where it was used to open and progress conversations with enterprise businesses.

THE RESULTS: