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We are Innovation 1stWe create beautifully branded products to help our clients market their brand.
Services
We offer three core services at Innovation 1st to tell a brands story: Merchandise, Promotions & Licensing – at the heart of all these services is branded products. For most of our clients, it’s important that their branded product story helps them to drive down overall marketing costs and increase new customers. We believe that branded products should be treated as a marketing channel and that this channel can seriously contend, and even outpace other, more exploited marketing channels.
Merchandise
Often the story starts with merchandise as an effective way of building brand awareness. Getting volume of branded product out into the world by various different means of distribution is a cost effective way of getting long term marketing exposure. People keep a promotional item on average for 2.5 years (a lot longer than an email!) and 73% of the world’s population use a branded product – look around you - they’re everywhere! This merchandise can be your popular items such as bags, pens and confectionary right the way to niche items like a branded building, phone box or an inflatable car wash (yes, we have done a range of those!). We are handling over 5 million branded products a year so these volumes drive down costs for our clients and we’re popular with manufacturers!
Promotions
It upsets us that merchandise is sometimes the last thing on the list of considerations when running a marketing campaign. Often, there is promotional activity that can be used to leverage branded products, that needn’t cost more, if the brief is intercepted early enough – this is middle part of the story. It could be exactly the same product but we could introduce some sort of call to action like a QR code, or a redeemable element asking people to interact on social media to claim something. All of a sudden we are using the same item but increasing conversions, moreover, conversions that are now backed with hard data. Maybe some point of sale activity, a pop-up shop, an event stand or a supporting digital campaign will bolster your merchandise? We can make those products work harder. We also have a wonderful bunch of clients that let us collaborate with other brands for co-branded activity and extra distribution.
Licensing
The end of the story, the utopia for a lot of our clients, is to have a brand so desirable that consumers will buy their branded products in retail channels – licensing is a low risk way of making this happen. Let’s assume we have done such an amazing job in the beginning and middle of the story and now you have great power, brand power so great that licensee’s will fund, create and distribute products with your brand on it and you sit back and take a royalty from all the sales. You now have new revenue streams and free exposure with products, with your brand on them, appearing in shops and in the hands of people all over the world. Our sister company, The Specialist Brand Agency (TSBA), offers end to end licensing services – please visit www.tsbagroup.com if you want to know more about these services.
MARKETING COSTS
NEW CUSTOMERS
BEGINNING MERCHANDISE
MIDDLEPROMOTIONS
ENDLICENSING
BRAND AWARENESS
CONVERSION REVENUE
BEGINNING MERCHANDISE
MIDDLEPROMOTIONS
ENDLICENSING
BRAND AWARENESS
CONVERSION REVENUE
BESPOKEPRODUCT DESIGN
GLOBAL ETHICAL SOURCING
BRAND ASSURANCE
E-COMMERCE
POINT OF SALE
BRAND TIE UPS
MARKETING TOOL KITS
EVENTS/ACTIVATIONS
LICENSEE ACQUISITION
PRODUCT APPROVALS
STYLE GUIDES
BRAND GUIDELINES
ASSET CATALOGUES
MERCHANDISEPROMOTIONS
LICENSING
Ars
enal
FC
*Selection of Clients
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Innovation 1st
The start of our story is not that dissimilar to that of most businesses - apathy for current employment, an idea, and some good connections! When I feel like it really started was when our team of three in our office (if you could call it that) in Richmond had got our hands on a brief to make lots of mugs for one of the biggest brands in the world. We were no strangers to the negative reputation of branded products so we saw this as our first opportunity to demonstrate that even a mug could tell a story and that products can contend, even outpace, other marketing channels. We talked to the client a LOT and questioned around the wider ambitions of the campaign that the mugs were destined for and used our client’s rich heritage and artwork in the designs. The mugs were a huge success and we were able to directly attribute the product to a greater bottom line for our client. From those humble mugs, we were asked to do more and more and we now create branded products for all kinds of purposes, covering over 100 countries for some of the most recognised brands across the globe. We’re still in Richmond but now in a space that could legitimately be called an office and we have a lot more than three people - if should you find yourself in the area then we would be delighted to show you around…
Ian Mallalue and Garry Holland
We hope you enjoy our short stories of innovation.
Aston Villa – Game changing promotions
We have worked with Aston Villa Football Club since Innovation 1st was in its infancy. AVFC, as the originators of the Football League and being one of the oldest and most successful clubs, meant that we had plenty of history to exploit, as well as a strong reputation to uphold. We handle a number of the club’s product needs including their match day gifts and items for their young fans in a community they call ‘JV Life’. Once, we were tasked with using products to help AVFC fill seats at their less desirable matches. The products had to be high volume, low cost, ‘money can’t buy’, appeal to a wide demographic and have quick lead times to meet deadlines on short notice match fixtures. One of the products was a pin badge which fulfilled all of the criterias set out in the brief but we wanted to get even more millage from the product so we put the badge designs on AVFC Facebook for their community to vote on. Over 15% of their 2m fans voted on Facebook and the winning pin badge design went on to be worn by 40k fans at the subsequent match. The pin badges were part of a collectible series enticing people to attend matches to get the whole collection – mid-week match attendance increased by 10% in this period and we’ve seen lots of other football clubs follow suit with this product.
BMW & Mini – A short or ‘mini’ story
BMW & Mini are known for their high performance cars and technologically advanced engines which work optimally with specific engine oils and lubricants. Having worked closely with other brands in the automotive sector, for whom we have brokered huge oil and lubricant deals, we were invited to help promote BMW & Mini’s new twin turbo oil range. They needed promotional material to educate their staff about the oil so they could sell it and use it in their forecourts across Europe. We designed a pack loaded with all the relevant information with the star item being the USB which we designed to look like mini replicas of the oil cans. The packs were delivered to over 25 countries, some of which were exceptionally challenging territories to deliver in and we continue to partner with BMW on similar projects.
H&M – A collection of conscious campaigns
H&M were another early partner of Innovation 1st and we have created a wide variety of products for their brands and campaigns including items for the H&M ‘Conscious’ brand to promote their ethical values, H&M jobs to entice future employees at recruitment fairs and point of sale items used in H&M stores. For H&M Conscious we were briefed to create products that would make people question their own ethical values and we produced a number of products including a shower timer to help people minimise water usage and a solar powered phone charger. We also created the collateral for their ‘Long Live Fashion’ campaign whereby people were invited to exchange old items of clothing for H&M vouchers. Since these various campaigns, H&M has been recognised as the world’s most ethical brand and we continue to provide them with branded products from highly ethical and sustainable sources.
NHS – The National Health Story
The NHS is the largest and the oldest single-payer healthcare system in the world and they frequently role out national campaigns to educate and promote healthier living to a variety of UK demographics and social groups. Some of the Innovation 1st team have experience working in health marketing and felt there was an opportunity to create a range of products that supported the various social health campaigns the NHS had in the pipeline. We pitched a number of products for their key campaigns relating to alcohol consumption, smoking, sexual health, oral hygiene and obesity. Some of the more notable products included a baby keyring that randomly cried to highlight the demands of young motherhood in a light-hearted, novel way and fun sports equipment to get kids exercising. Our client was delighted to see products that really spoke to people and broke the normal practice of rolling out generic, unrelated merchandise at a higher price.
Quantcast – Casting a new approach
Quantcast are a leading digital marketing technology company with Headquarters in San Francisco and 20 other offices across the world. They are a forward thinking business in a fast paced industry and the branded products they require need to reflect this. We began with some standard, quality ranges such as stationary, powerbanks, USBs etc. to equip all their staff, predominantly in the UK, as well as more developing more niche products tying into their brand themes such as a ‘quantasaurus’ baby grow for staff welcoming new arrivals and gifts for their various events. Since the early days, we have seen Quancast undergo a major rebrand and with it, a need for a more streamlined approach to their merchandise acquisition. So as well as developing an entirely new, fresh range of products, we also built an ecommerce store for their staff, globally, to buy branded merchandise in any volume and combination they wish. The products are all designed by our award winning design team and Quantcast only want quality merchandise for their staff so it’s no wonder that they have been voted in the ‘Top 10 San Francisco tech companies you wished you worked for’.
Shell Heritage – A big story in a nut’Shell’
Shell Heritage is the Shell brand predating 1995, mainly referencing the golden eras of motoring in the 50’s and 60’s. Shell have the largest collection of corporate artwork and an amazing heritage in the Auto industry. With some 40,000 assets and the associated nostalgia, we initially developed collectible ranges for sales promotions in their modern retail sites. The demand for the Shell Heritage brand exploded and we have since rolled out a global licensing programme to put Shell Heritage products into retail channels. We have also designed and built activations at events like Goodwood Revival, The Spa Grand Prix and operational vintage petrol stations to give people that retro motoring experience. Our latest report estimated that over 10 million people were using Shell Licensed products.
Shell Modern - Oil the way to the top
Shell are consistently in the top 20 most valuable brands according to Brand Finance. Our partnership with Shell ‘modern’ i.e. the Shell brand post 1995, came after our successful revival of the Shell Heritage brand. Innovation 1st design products to promote Shell and their 100’s of sub-brands, e.g. Helix, V-Power and Fuelsave, including designing bespoke awards for the Shell team. We are designing, sourcing, warehousing and delivering millions of branded products every month in over 100 countries. We run the internal webstore, ‘Shell Central’, averaging 30,000 product sales per month, allowing Shell staff to access and buy any one of the 1000 different approved branded products for the countless internal campaigns they run. As well as this huge merchandising operation, we have also brokered large licensing deals, most notably in the area of care car and lubricants from which products can be found in their 45,000 retail sites globally.
Weetabix - Products that hit the spot
Weetabix are a British born company, exporting in over 80 countries, known for their wheat breakfast cereal. Innovation 1st have a longstanding relationship with Weetabix namely in the area of helping promote the launch of new Weetabix brands to retailers. These brands include Weetabix On The Go, Weetabix Protein and Weetabix Weetabuddies. Success at buyer’s conferences are critical to new brands becoming highly visible in supermarkets and to consumers so as well as ensureing we meet the brief by creating high volume, commercially favourable products, we also make sure that the products are useful in their nature so that our client is front of mind for days, months, years after the conferences. The Weetabix website received over 30x more traffic in the weeks after the event to launch Weetabix On The Go.
Whistl - Delivering on the TNT to Whistl rebrand
Whistl, formerly TNT post, processes over 25% of all the UK’s mail - over 4 billion items per year. They issued a competitive tender for their promotional merchandise and corporate gifts contract. Innovation 1st won the contract and developed a core range of standard products including whistles, USB’s and power banks as well as internal gift packages such as lunch boxes and water bottles to gain staff buy-in. In less than 6 months of the 3 year contract, over 30,000 products were in circulation as part of a successful brand migration.
