Product designer feedback

As a group we are extremely pleased with the outcome of the CAD design by the product designer, pictured below. It is exactly what we had pictured the packaging looking like and are glad that it works with our brand. 

We now need to create a logo for 'Bluff' that can be used on the wooden box that will encase the black bottle and our advertising material.

Packaging brief for product designer

Bluff. – The Brand Bluff. 

embodies urban British street culture, standing to represent and speak the language of our niche male market. At Bluff.’s core are the talented young creatives, the artists, the musicians and the skaters that we proudly represent. We revolve ourselves around urban arts and graphics, electronic music, and the hosting of Bluff. events that epitomise all of this. 

The Product 

Born from the male fragrance industry’s restrained level of marketing (overly tanned, photo-shopped, muscle men posing on exotic beaches) Bluff.’s debut product is a male fragrance that aims to break the stereotype by providing a product that is far more real and street, something that our consumer can relate to. Bluff.’s fragrance promotes honesty through both packaging and marketing. 

The bottle 

1. Material – matt black ceramic 
The bottle itself will be made of a matt black ceramic material, appearing modern and simple, and avoiding the glossy, commercialised and ‘in your face’ type of design. Whilst this material has quite an urban look, it is also discreet enough to promote our idea of honesty, and differentiates it from the mainstream use of glass for fragrance bottles. 

2. Diffuser – black ceramic-like material 

3. Cap – wooden (same wood as box) Pushes down into bottle 

4. Logo placement – base of bottle The logo will be printed on the base of the bottle, and the visible parts of the bottle left blank. 

5. Size/shape - 50ml 

The packaging 

1. Material - unfinished wood 

2. Opening - sliding lid 

3. Logo placement – front of box

Seminar: Rebranding

Rebranding Jameson's whiskey

TASK

Your agency has been selected to pitch for a new communication campaign.

You should present an integrated approach with a 'multi-channel' approach.

There should be consideration for all parts of the brand journey (awareness, engagement, conversions).

Think about - launch event, press adverts, websites, social media. What's the big idea?

IDEA

> Change bottle design: street graffiti - would attract younger audience, people may initially purchase for bottle design then like taste and repeat purchase.

> Rooftop/graffiti event: Would reinvent the brand as a cooler, younger & more appealing brand.

Brainstorm of my group's ideas for the rebrand pictured above (live graffiti art, product placement, cocktails experimenting with mixers - create relation with art & music)

Interview with model

After the photoshoot we interviewed the model to grasp a full understanding of his life and interests 

What course do you study?
International Business
What do you do other than your course? (societies, clubs etc)
President of snow sports society
Future plans - after uni (job, internship, travelling etc)
1 year working and snowboarding in Canada
Favourite restaurant
Chipolte
Favourite drink
Chocolate milk
Favourite night out in Nottingham
Detonate
Internet sites regularly visited
Shock mansion, stampd LA, forever ashbury
Favourite brands
Nike SB, Misbhv
Where most clothes are purchased
Online - America, Europe
Favourite magazine
Don't buy magazines
If got given £1,000 would buy
A new snowboard

Fragrance worn
Chanel Blue - would be willing to experiment: try a new one
What do you like about it
The smell and packaging (smell is what made purchase)
How much would you spend on fragrance
£30-40 for 50ml, this was bought as gift
Where would you buy fragrance
Would consider buying from a clothing store/Boots/department store

Photoshoot

On the 30th April we did our photoshoot in Nottingham for our fragrance brand.

Model:
We decided to use my friend Chloe's friend Ollie. We thought he'd be perfect for our brand as both his look and lifestyle represent our brand's essence and values.

Locations:
Burns Avenue
White wall (shape in wall)
Blue gate
Park hotel
Inside photos? Possibly in model's house?

Images from shoot:

We were really pleased with how the images turned out and are looking forward to seeing how they will be translated into ads once we have edited them using Photoshop.

Brand Essence Model

Today, we progressed with our fragrance project by drawing up an initial brand essence model. 

Design Equation:

Simple, honest looking
Courier font (typewriter looking)

Values:

Careless (casual, simple) lifestyle
Honesty
Simple
Dedication to customer satisfaction - theory of repeat customers

Personality:

Cultured, informed, creative, urban
Informed and opinionated but not pushy

Brand Truth:

A brand that speaks to an intelligent, modern consumer.

Embodies British street culture, standing to represent and speak the language of our niche male market.

At Bluff's core are the talented young creatives, the artists, the musicians and the skaters that we proudly represent.

We revolve ourselves around urban arts and graphics, electronic music, and the hosting of Bluff. events that epitomise all of this.

Attributes/benefits:

Intelligent, cultured, empowered by the brand, unique

Brand Promise:

A unique and intelligent brand that promises to remain culturally aware and deliver an accessible fragrance for urban people.

Creating our fragrance

On the 17th April following a lecture and seminar with Karen Gilbert we created our fragrance in our groups. We had to test different smells and mix together a combination of heart notes, accessories, heart notes and harmonisers. 

It was difficult at first to select the right combination as we wanted our fragrance to smell masculine yet fresh, and this proved hard as Karen initially said it smelt too feminine. We then replaced one of the floral smells for a woody smell.

Our final fragrance combination:

Heart

Muguet (green floral) - 40 drops

Naturelle Homme (fresh mens) - 40 drops

Woody (dry wood cedar) - 40 drops

Accessory

Green (green grassy) - 20 drops

Tobacco (aromatic) - 20 drops

Fixative

Mossy (green earthy)

Harmoniser

Bergamot (citrus)

Consumer profile for perfume brand

Today, looking further into our new fragrance brand we have created a consumer profile.

Name: Ed

Age: 23

Likes: Going out with friends, smoking, going to gigs, films, drinking, playing and making music, visiting art galleries

Job: Intern at a graphic design company

Listens to: The who, the jam, the clash, blur, oasis, pulp (old Brit music) Also J villa, Alt-J etc

Watches: This is England, Trainspotting, Drive, Clockwork Orange

Shops at: Cow Vintage, charity shops, ebay, ASOS marketplace, All Saints, Urban Outfitters, Supreme

Goes to: Bodega, Brickworks, Lacehouse, Market bar, Spankys, Stealth

Drinks: Jack Daniels, beer

Other info: Small meaningful artistic tattoo, tragus piercing, single, messy/unkept hair, stubble-no beard,  6"2, no glasses, flat with friends -> mixture of girls and boys 

Defining the Consumer

It has taken us a while to completely decide who we want our perfume to target.

We have always looked at targeting males as we feel there is a gap in the market here and as females it would be interesting to find out more about the male fragrance industry, something which none of us know much about.

We have made lots of boards on Pinterest defining our consumer and looking at other elements of the brief such as the packaging, adverts and locations. 

The boards can be found here http://www.pinterest.com/fcpp/

Initial research - in Nottingham

Nottingham Research Day

Lush

The woman in the Lush shop was able to give us a lot of information about their fragrances which previously I did not even know existed - such as the fact that Lush scents are worked on by the Lush owner and his son. 

The packaging was something I really thought had been well done as it took away the serious side to Lush with the cartoonised boxes for the different perfumes. 

Lush is a much more innovative brand than I initially realised, instead of having a press launch or party they opened a perfume gallery in London in which each room was scented differently to showcase the new range. They also released a bath bomb called 'breath of god' which has inhale and exhale on which both contain different scents to relax the body.

The most popular product for men is a scent called 'dirty' which is a spray (like cleaning product) bottle and so although it is a unisex product, appeals much more to men. A lot of the products collaborate with other products to fill a whole range. An example of this is the dirty range where there is spearmint soap, springwash shower gel, toothpaste and sandalwood shaving cream. The idea is that when layered together the smell is 'dirty'. The range had the slogan 'don't be dirty, be clean'.

This image shows the Gorilla perfume which is different to all of the other perfumes. It is called Gorilla as it is to do with warfare and being against status quo. The perfume has simple, black and plain packaging which is more like the usual Lush products. 

 Zara

In Zara I found the packaging quite cheap looking. It is a cheap product with perfumes ranging around £14.99ish and so you would not expect the same look as a premium product but I don't feel it has been done very well. 

Crabtree and Evelyn

Interesting idea for a continuation of the scent into a range - bringing vintage up to date with a new product. They have re-released shaving soap but in a wooden box so retaining the vintage feel of the product. 

Kiehls

Kiehl's started as a pharmacy in 1851 making naturally derived, fragrance free products. It was the first company in the whole beauty industry to have a full men's range. They have since branched out further with a dog and horse range in America.

All their fragrances are unisex with the fig leaf & sage being most popular with men. Original musk is a scent which is a recreation of a perfume found in the basement of the original store in the 1920s.

L'Occitane

Here we mainly focused on the VM and the way in which the product was presented. We found that glass generally made it look like a cheaper product - with ceramic instantly making it more appealable. 

I liked the way they presented ranges with key words that sum up the product, an example is in the image below. Verdon eau de toilette - exhilarating, modern and fresh. 

Aveda

Products packaging focused on a woody theme with natural looking recycled elements. The men's care range is called 'pure-formance' which hints at a natural range reflecting on a need for good products. 

They clearly care a lot about the ingredients used in their products with a book called the 'buriti book' entirely dedicated about an ingredient in the oils, with the book being the actual size of a 'buriti'.

Creative Networks Module: Perfume brief

FRAGRANCE PROJECT

The world fragrance and perfume industry is expected to exceed $36 billion in 2017, according to research from Global Industry Analysts. Market growth is fuelled by demand from emerging markets and consumer lifestyle trends granting an increasingly central place to grooming. Your challenge is to find an opportunity for a new fragrance brand in this saturated market.

In teams of 3 to 5 (max) people you will create a new fragrance brand.

You will research the market and identify opportunities for a new fragrance brand and participate in the various stages that go towards the creation of a brand– from initial research through to launch and on to an annual marketing plan.

This project is designed to help you develop your understanding of brands and how they are researched, conceived, developed and promoted.

Primary research, concept development and execution will be fundamental to the success of this project.

The project is divided into three parts:

1/ Research & Concept Development (team)

2/ Brand Development (team)

3/ Brand Launch & Promotion (individual)

Re Vamping the blog

As you may have noticed I have changed the whole layout of my blog so that each post is now in its own section - with my personal blog posts staying separate from those relevant to my course. Hopefully this should keep it less cluttered but also encourage me to post more often!

Previous blog posts about the course can be found here http://rosebazaar.blogspot.co.uk