Think Out Loud is a blog brought to you by the team at ThinkTank - a catalytic consultancy specialising in strategic marketing, branding and innovation based in Cork, Ireland.
Made in Ireland and based in Cork, Human+Kind skincare has recently launched a welcome addition to its line of all natural skincare products, a fabulous all natural multipurpose body oil which is easily absorbed and highly beneficial for the skin. I’ve been using it for the past few days and it really is a gem of a product, particularly coming out of these winter months when skin has been moisture deprived.
It’s a great next step for Human+Kind on its upward trajectory and is an indicator of how quickly this company has grown since we helped launch the brand in Dubai in May 2011. Demand for the all natural range is increasing at pace and Human+Kind is now distributed across Europe, Asia and the middle East with many new and innovative products in the pipeline for 2012/2013.
It’s very welcome news for the team here at ThinkTank who combined research and strategy with powerful branding to effectively create, communicate and deliver the Human+Kind brand into the marketplace on behalf of the brand owners, the all Dutch team of Rene Van Willigen and Jeroen Proos.
Very early on ThinkTank recognised the unique value in the idea behind the product – multipurpose skincare that is 100% natural. While multipurpose products in skincare are not news, 100% natural multipurpose products with high levels of incredibly effective and proven active ingredients are very new to the marketplace and this is where Human+Kind spotted a gap.
It was up to ThinkTank to evaluate the opportunity through rigorous research and then use the insights generated from the research to inform strategy development (market positioning, market segmentation & targeting, customer value proposition) and the development of the Human+kind brand which is a key tool for the owners to communicate the value inherent in the products to the marketplace.
It’s a great time to be an all natural skincare brand as natural and organic skincare is on an incredible upward growth curve with more and more consumers becoming highly chemical aware and demanding of their product choices so that they can minimise any potentially negative impact on their health while maximising performance and wellness benefits. In addition, women are increasingly looking to skincare products that deliver maximum performance benefits but in half the time and half the perceived number of products required for their daily skincare regime.
Global players like P+G and L’Oréal are solving these specific skincare problems with the recent smash hit launches of their multipurpose BB (Blemish Balm) creams which cut down considerably the number of products a woman needs in her arsenal, however, Human+Kind goes one better in that it solves an important problem for consumers in a way that the skincare giants are not – it tackles the chemical issue by being 100% natural and reduces the need for multiple products while delivering extremely powerful antiageing benefits and therapeutic benefits over time.
Jeroen Proos, the co-founder of Human+Kind has commented that “Evaluating the opportunity, or “sanity testing” it through research has to be the first port of call for any entrepreneur or start-up, then, once you are comfortable that there is a market, determining where and how to position the product in that market relative to the competition in order to own a territory for your brand and differentiate, how to use the brand both on and offline as a key tool to create brand awareness, relevance, preference and ultimately purchase are the key steps that any brand that has aspirations to become a player on a global stage in a crowded marketplace has to undertake in order to be successful.”
Finally, the packaging that ThinkTank developed for Human+Kind has already won recognition, Human+Kind has recently featured on RTE’s highly popular Nationwide programme and on TV3’s Expose, winning plaudits from influential bloggers like Kirstie McDermott of Beaut.ie and a legion of influential beauty bloggers in the Netherlands. Looks like Human+Kind is only at the start of a very exciting and rewarding journey.
Marketing journalist Siobhán O’Connell, wrote an interesting article in the Irish Times Media & Marketing section recently where she posed the question “Does Musgrave’s takeover afford the opportunity to reinvent or kill the Superquinn brand?” ThinkTank was kindly asked to comment and our thoughts together with the diverse views of other branding and marketing experts can be viewed here in the Irish Times article.
Superquinn’s excellence in the past was due to the extraordinary vision of Fergal Quinn. He understood brand innately and knew that every world beating brand is underpinned by a strong customer value proposition. He set about identifying the important problems that needed to be solved for Irish grocery shoppers, exceeding their expectations constantly through a culture of innovation, relentlessly placing the customer at the core of the organisation and in so doing building a hugely successful brand.
It is certainly refreshing in the Cork advertising space to see the broadsheet Irish Examiner making a bold move with the development of their hard hitting and thought provoking billboard and print ad campaign.
Developed by Dublin based Chemistry advertising the campaign promotes the Examiner’s “Special Investigations” supplement that tackles several of Ireland’s socially taboo subjects -including alcoholism, mental illness, clerical abuse, human trafficking, suicide and pornography.
At ThinkTank we were encouraged to read Alf Smiddy’s recent Blog post entitled -It’s all about your Brand - which also appeared in innovative financial services firm, Quintas’ spring newsletter.
As a former MD and Chairman of Beamish & Crawford Plc, for over twelve years and current chairman and director on a number of Boards, Alf has a tremendous depth of experience in both the financial and branding arenas. This combination of skills is particularly unique and it’s inspiring to hear one of Cork’s most respected business leaders recognising the importance and value of brands.
In an insightful and thought -provoking post he outlines why in our tumultuous economic landscape, business as usual has become irrelevant and how companies need to to “inspire and mobilise people around a common purpose.” He goes onto explain,“I firmly believe that it’s through innovation, the re-invention of existing brands, and the creation of new brands that will create the climate for business success going forward.”
When it comes to innovation we often focus on the sexy part – coming up with the ideas! In this insightful Harvard Business Review video Vijay Govindarajan, Tuck School of Business professor, talks about why innovation is so hard to implement and what you can do about it. Innovation is all about commercializing creativity and Vijay explains why companies need to forget about the past if they want to create the future. In his new book The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge with Chris Trimble – he explains how companies need to build separate innovation teams that a are separate from the operating engine of the business. This is important if you want to let go off organizational baggage and introduce new skills and fresh perspectives. You can follow Vijay on Twitter right HERE!
Good design is good business. Yet it’s amazing how few good business people recognize and understand the commercial value of good design.
Think about how every day poorly designed products and services add complexity instead of simplicity to our lives. The tortuously convoluted language used by the financial services industry, the non-intuitive features on electronic gadgets that most of us will never fathom, big call centres that tell you what they can’t do instead of what they can, antiquated recruitment practices that tick boxes instead of identifying talent and newspaper layouts that are cluttered with ads all fighting for attention like kids on a sugar rush! The universe may contain intelligent design but many products and services certainly do not!
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of 2010, understand profitability. If I could offer you only one tip for the future profitability would be it”…..but more from Baz Luhrmann later…….
As a marketing lecturer, the second most common question I get asked (next to, “what is coming up on the exam”?) is “How am I ever going to get a job in marketing?”. Worse than this, in the students where the glass seems perpetually half empty, the statement “I am never going to get a job in marketing” reverberates every year as the academic term is coming to a close. Now, what is interesting is that this sentiment appears to transcend gender, age and academic achievements, and was heard as loudly during the “Celtic Tiger” era as it is now in our economic recession. Essentially, no marketing student seems to think they are going to get a job in marketing. For a marketing lecturer who has spent years working with these students this is a disheartening sentiment to constantly hear, but more than that, it is a frustrating one. Why is it that these bright, intelligent, articulate students, these Generation Y students who are constantly being told that they are the chosen ones, the future, the ones who are connected; why is it that these students think they won’t get a job in marketing?
Hello. My name is Anna and I am a Millennial. I am part of the largest generation yet to exist. We populate Facebook and YouTube. We are social and always connected. We are armed with laptops, iPods and smart phones. We are Generation Y, or indeed Generation Y Not.
The Millennials are the “wired” generation and we don’t know how to be any other way. We’re a new breed of consumers and unfortunately most businesses are not prepared for us. Businesses need to get to know the Millennials if they want to be relevant and successful in the future. Our global annual spending power exceeds $250 billion and we also influence another $50 million in purchases. Our generation has bigger potential purchasing power than the Baby Boomers and is set to supplant them as the most powerful economic force on planet earth.
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