The Humanized Appeal of innocent drinks
My ongoing research into companies/brands that are “humanized” or incorporate humanizing elements in a longer term journey toward humanization (say that three times fast), depends on the kindness of business contacts and readers who give me leads. I’m happy to report that I was recently given the “heads up” about a clever, customer-loving smoothie company based in the U.K. – “innocent drinks.” When I read up a bit, I found that their mission, goals and vision all stem from, a) the fact the founders themselves love smoothies and b) they had a very strong connection with their core customers, right from the start.
In a 2004 profile written by Peter Crush of Marketing Direct , innocent drinks founder and marketing director, Richard Reed, put it this way:
“’We talk about customers as the Innocent Family. As such we want our marketing to amplify the truth of the brand,’ he says. ‘We don’t define our drinkers by age or by sex, but more by their attributes – wanting good healthy food, who are cause and environmentally aware, but are also kind of kooky.’”
Later in the piece, Reed is quoted as saying, “’Everything we do has to be something that people actually want. That’s our only guiding principle.’”
Brilliant, as my friends in London would say.
Please note this: from the very, very beginning (1998), innocent drinks invited, nay required, feedback to continue their business. At the small jazz festival where it all began, the founders, then university students, put out two bins in front of their stall to collect the recyclable bottles: one was a “yes” bin and the other was a “no” bin. The question smoothie drinkers were asked to vote on via their bottle toss: “Should we quit our jobs and dedicate our time to building a fruit smoothie empire?” You know the answer.
The three founders started with roughly $1000 USD and now run a successful company with 50 staff members in a place they named “Fruit Towers.”
As for a few of the humanizing elements of their web site:
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Relatable copy style. Here’s an example from the “our story” page :
“We call them innocent because our drinks are always completely pure, fresh and unadulterated. Anything you ever find in an innocent bottle will always be 100% natural and delicious -and if it isn’t, get on the banana phone and make us beg for forgiveness. “
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Front and center recognition/posting of customer input. (You can link to a “you” section from their about us page and read “some nice things that people have said” about innocent.)
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Their cause sponsorship is 100% aligned with their business, and that section of the site is called what it is, “Doing Good Things.”
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They have photos of all the staff members on their “contact” page. PLUS, if you roll over them, you can see a baby photo of the person as well! I’m not kidding.
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Their site is simply put, fun, and my how it makes me wish I could drink their products and get to know them more.
The caveat, of course, is that small entrepreneurial companies will always have the advantage in being able to connect with, and staying connected to, their roots and their passionate core customers. Part of my current research is to try to identify some of those larger brands (in the U.S. and internationally) that are showing signs of climbing out of their corporate inertia by way of humanizing aspects of their business.
I invite your comments and feedback, as always. Any discussion will guide my further digging around on this topic, so I thank you in advance.
Now, aren’t you just dyin’ for a smoothie?
