Quick and dirty brand analysis. Neal's Yard Remedies.

Neal's Yard Remedies, founded in 1981, is a British beauty classic.  I'm surprised it isn't more widespread than it is outside of the UK. But then again, conscientious growth just goes with their ethical, earth-aware ethos. Still, NYR is a bit solemn - they have established their authority as a leader in the organic field, earned our trust, won awards and I think they need to have a little fun. NYR is now on Snapchat (just during the writing of this post!) and I'm curious to see how that goes. How would it work? They are clearly not playing to the Snapchat audience. I think they can move in that direction though by unleashing their inner cool, and I have ideas for how that could happen.

With the increasing interest in both personalized medicine and nutrition, as well as the ever-expanding holistic approaches to health and wellness, Neal's Yard will have a a lot of foment to tap into in the coming years. It is alternative healing - beauty and body homeopathy to the allopathic, aseptic pharmaceutical beauty brand La Roche-Posay. A Boiron to Pfizer. Both the ethics and the local nature of their products are core to the brand and to the "go local" phenomenon which remains dominant. While taking environmental and even social sustainability head-on (Argan oil is sourced from Moroccan women's work cooperatives), they speak to people looking for natural solutions to stress, sun protection, aging and chemical sensitivities. Without being too technical, NYR inform you on the maladies of modern life and how their products deal so harmonically with them. They're empowering their consumers with information and education, to take their healing into their own hands - all so good.

Their iconic blue - regal, tranquil, staid, a bit traditional, somewhat austere- is offset by a soft, modern looking serif font. The glass packaging and label is also a key symbol - a calming watery vehicle connecting us back to the earth - the colors of beach glass. Part of their color palate even includes the beige-y sand. It is an interesting contrast to the tree logo - the mirrored reflection suggests NYR works on building up, rather than depleting the earth. They embody the solid earth. That the power of what we see is fueled by what we don't - the roots underground. This extends to their products - simple yet powerful, the oomph of the earth within them. The glass packaging? Another visionary move way before the effects of BPA became part of the public discussion. Together, there is honesty, calm, authority, trust, elegance, longevity and simplicity, sustainability: moral satisfaction for the post-Aquarian eco activist, or the traveler who needs to be enveloped in the soothing, grounded, earthy goodness. It is a place where Rachel Carson would undoubtedly shop. But you can still imagine its hippie chic origins in the colorful Covent Garden store.

Rachel Carson, the marine biologist and visionary author of Silent Spring

I see a fitting comparison in Kiehl's Since 1851, even if it is a more luxury brand - it has something to suggest to NYR. With its own fun take on natural beauty medicine, it's signal is more quirky than NYR - in a good way. I don't love some of their brighter colored packaging, but as old as the company is, Kiehl's comes out more strongly on the cool factor: more badass rockabilly with its motorcycle and skeleton - Mr. Bones displayed in store.  The original location in the West Village (where I bought a product a few weeks ago)  is on the apothecary tip of beauty and wellness - where you might have found the old naturalists bringing ingredients to the ol' alchemists one-hundred-ish years back. At the same time, their products gain some legitimacy as a "treatment" through the association with the pharmacy structure, the in-store consultants donning white coats to demonstrate the scientific transformation of nature into its purified, medicinal state - a bit too pharmaceutical for NYR.

But NYR promote actual health much more than Kiehl's, and I had a truly wonderful in-store experience at Neal's Yard, Victoria Station when passing through London recently. The service was so knowledgeable, it would have been comical, crunchy madness, if I didn't feel so comforted by the fact that I felt I'd leave with what I needed. The product selection wasn't overwhelming - it felt like everything I might have wanted was there. I ended up creating my own delicious body oil blend. And then I got it home and kind of forgot what exactly was in the bottle. It wasn't written down anywhere for me. NYR probably captured this info as they charged it out but it suggested something missing in the experience. Though I have some bigger suggestions, I'll start here:

Suggestion 1: Community building. They are spot-on - clear leaders- with so many options for personalization, but NYR should offer a way for me to refer back to what I'd actually purchased. The in-store experience is a chance to really play and I had no way to follow up that process with an online engagement. They've laid the foundation but need to follow through by allowing people to solidify an individual experience rather than a generalized one - have a two-way conversation for customers excited about the great product they'd developed: Me "Mmm, an argan body oil with neroli and frankincense" do you love it as much as I do?" Neal's Yard rep: "great blend...For those of you who don't know about those gems, the benefits of that should be x, y and z" and so on. Link retail and digital more thoroughly.

Suggestion 2: Bring it to the Men - We are well into the age where men are accustomed to taking more attentive care of themselves. NYR aren't just pampering products. They are the very basics that we all need for ongoing good maintenance. The revolution in men's face hair in the past few years has allowed them exposure to new products that can become a gateway to more careful attention. Men's grooming is actually a thing. NYR boasts a small masculine line, but I think the majority of NYR, as well as the packaging, is gender neutral which is great. Start hitting #mensgrooming #mensproducts #fathersday #menwithstyle #forthemen. There should be a Men's kit along with the other skincare kits. Plus, the basis of every masculine fragrance is here - black pepper, cedarwood, bergamot, coriander . There is so much to mine at NYR for the men. However, there is little to no signaling to the men that these are products for them too - beside the shaving cream. Masculinity is turning inside out right now - NYR should be on the cutting edge of gender developments.

While more targeted research is needed, here are two quick options for cool/interesting masculine venues:
AnOtherman (a division of AnOthermag)
The Art of Manliness

Suggestion 3: Strategic collaborations that brings NYR into tribes and territories that would share the organic and sustainable vibe with some well-selected products, or limited-release products for each extension, to ADD SOME FUN by just extending a bit. This approach may be off their radar because they just seem to be speaking to an older audience - too serious. Their low-key, life affirming path is wonderful but frankincense and neroli, ylang ylang - these are sensual - NYR has to bring out that there are MANY tribes that fit within their range - the lavender and a quiet cup of tea feels entirely too contained. Young people are increasingly conscious of the sustainability of organic products and they're also concerned about sun protection and aging. But NYR has to update not only the technology but brand-feel accordingly and young people are more likely to take notice if they see NYR enjoying the ride, and see people enjoying their NYR products.

CATCH THE WAVE. Semiotics informed directions that can extend the brand: build an aquatic element into the NYR line. It is already contained in the dark blue glass and the lighter blue labeling - the beach glass. Aquatics would represent a striking, yet intuitive, organic complement to their earth base, held so beautifully in their logo with tree and roots. Earth provides the solid base, water flows - allows different, new energy, even as they work together. In the same way, the water element makes sense from a national perspective, as a British brand, the water all around the isles. The seashore taps into all the calm and tranquility NYR aims for yet it could bring a bit of edginess, lighten the mood up a bit - "fresh" and "oceanic" "marine" and "sea". Without veering sensorially into the coconut, vanilla and pineapple when going for a youthful audience, it can always be made to cut across segments with florals and citrus, bay leaf.  The aquatic element adds in beautiful products around seaweeds, kelps and sea salts both for body and as remedies or supplements - there are currently one or two products but it could become a more integrated, intentional strategy.

Seaweed, Salty AND Earthy

There is salt: Maldon of course, which is a mainstay in my home, but I can also imagine some hand-harvested fair-trade/ethical sourcing, highlighting the UK such as the Hebridean or Cornish Sea Salt but also supporting salt harvesters in other parts of the world. As much, it easily brings NYR beauty and wellness activism to oceanic and climate change routes. Sun care could add-in "beach/sea" care and beyond that, there are already so many water associated products to incorporate, though I'd love to see NYR adopt something like a Seaweed Absolute (bladderwrack) or Oakmoss in their essential oils to align with the theme. It feels right and it keeps the elegance and the sustainability core.

H&M Collab with Swedish Surfer Collective Nordsurf

Surf Styling - this is the part I love about adding an aquatic element to NYR. The potential for brand partnerships and NYR champions in the surfing community is very cool. Surfers are environmentalists - the sport requires being in accord with nature.  They are serious about their sport and about the environment but have a reputation for being lighthearted about life - groundedness of earth, "flow" of water. Partnering with sustainable and earth-conscious brands, surfer foundations and surfers as influencers and champions unleashes the hidden cool I am seeking here. Here are a few partners, just to get started: The first one is an obvious choice: The Green Wave, based in the UK is about sustainable surfing, gear and lifestyle products. Another is TwoThirds—a striking brand, relatively new from Spain that combines surfing and environmentalism in order to follow their philosophy, "Protect what you love." The Surfrider Foundation is a decades old non-profit that has a separate European arm whose mission is to protect beaches and shorelines. They work with corporate sponsors - how much fun would it be for NYR to help start a UK chapter of Surfrider?

Have a few beach parties to launch in select UK surf locations and highlight the new strategy, environmental concerns and some new products. Aquatics allow many new possibilities for keeping to the core feel of NYR but bring new products and new segments without being too forceful or even going too far afield.

India's "Make in India" brand: The third wave of futurism...

The branding of India's new national innovation program "Make in India" is truly eye candy. Launched in late 2014, the initiative was developed by the Modi government to (re) build a national economy that not only suffered in the recent global economic crisis but also failed to live up to the almost boundless growth that China had experienced. This brand initiative wants to put India back in the game - to ensure that being the fast growing global economy is a lead they hold onto. It wants to point the world toward India. The imagery (re)evokes the kind of mass industrial prowess of which the US in particular seems no longer capable. The world economy is just set up differently now and the Taylorist style factory cities (to the left) which brought the US wealth and empire status are now more common to national economies that are thought of as "catching up". According to the Nation Brands Report (2015), India's brand value increased by 32% from USD 1.62 trillion in 2014 to USD 2.14 trillion in 2015. If you believe that indicator is meaningful, something might be coming from this initiative. But I find the meanings behind these images very curious. It makes me think the strategy is to downplay the cultural gulf that might exist when trying to do business in parts of the world not one's own. But it's more than that. 

The more inward looking campaign "Be Indian Buy Indian" aimed within India's boundary, hoping to connect an Indian consumer's decision-making to national sentiment. In contrast, these brand materials, not the first attempt to brand Indian industry, clearly point outward - the primary logo gives us a wild animal, an exotic, yet elegant view of India as a place where you can still find wild animals roaming, a place whose open space for investment is as wide as an open plain.  The lion - wise, regal and ferocious-  the king of the forest, is tamed and modernized by removing it from a natural landscape and imbued with bright primary colors or sleek patterned overlays depending upon need. Almost prowling forward, it declares "We are the future".

There is deep design touch that owes so much to a modernist faith in technology as a central feature. It is all about industrialization. While the Make in India brand covers 30 different sectors, it seems to be aiming for tech and heavy industry/capital goods and infrastructure - semi-conductors, space, shipping, military, although global pharma knows all too well that India also has major competency in drug development.

Yet the accompanying images connote a deep understanding of the economic past; the heavy machinery evokes (for me, as an American) what was once the American lifeblood. This is what technology once meant, depicted by Charles Sheeler in his Ford factory in Detroit. Sheeler's work defined a brave, new, modern world led by American ingenuity in the 20th century.

Charles Sheeler, American, 1883-1965; Ford Plant, River Rouge, Criss-Crossed Conveyors,
1927; gelatin silver print. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Lane Collection

While the Make in India designs certainly borrow this energy, they are even more laden with associations of the mass industrial planning characteristic of the 1920's and 30's in Russia and in Germany. The, heavy, block-y font is pure Russian Futurism. The designs are so flat, abstract and retro, with bright, rich contrasting colors and laser cut angles - the precisionism of Sheeler, the monumentality of Soviet Constructivism or national socialism. The representations produced during that era were part of very rationalized social and economic systems in a complex package that grew wealth of nations, but were also foundational to the nationalist sentiments caught up in WWII and then the Cold War. In a nutshell: techno-fascism.

If you look quickly, the PPP could be mistaken for a CCCP...

Much as I appreciate the aesthetic itself  - I went through a Stenberg Brothers and a Rodchenko phase- what dominates this story is not people but machinery. These intend to make you feel awe in the face of the grand capacity for building. Wheels and moving parts, shiny, larger than life. Technology as the driver of human progress. Yet people disappear in and are dominated by such machinery and its relentless movement. As a social theory and a theory of management, Taylorism wanted people to bend to the will of the machine, to become part of it ("a cog in the machine") but even this idea quickly gave way to more anthropocentric understanding of the human-machine interface. Check out Chaplin's important critique of factory life in his film Modern Times (1936). Chaplin masterfully depicted how difficult were human's insertion into a steel clad environment.

No matter. Investors want to see the goods. But where are the people in this #MakeinIndia campaign? Was leaving them out intentional, a way to nullify the pesky issues concerning cultural differences, in work habits, institutional understanding, business practices? I suppose that is the point. The people that do exist in the story aren't the workers - the movers and shakers in the Indian economy- they are the global investors, those invited to participate in what is depicted as a new Industrial Revolution, happening in India. A call to arms, um - I mean to action.

And who are these anticipated investors?  To what region of the world are these images directed? Their feel might be too Socialist, too "red" for an American audience. Perhaps the underlying strategy is, "...to revive not only the Silk Road, but all the ancient trade routes crisscrossing the huge Eurasian land mass of the former Soviet Union in all directions."* In that context, the campaign makes much sense. After all, Narendra Modi and Putin just had their 16th bilateral summit where their love-fest was sanctified in sixteen different agreements that should reinforce partnership across security, trade, commerce, science and technology, defense, and energy - key "Make in India" sectors. They also aim to strengthen their defense partnership and encourage joint manufacturing of defense products in India. This will eventually pave the way for India becoming a central player in the global defense market. An important lesson from the Cold War: Centralized industrial planning is, as a political endeavor, as much an effort toward military build-up as it is an economic strategy. The "Make in India" imagery, in all its historical and artistic associations, is paying homage to a key partner and investor in Russia as much as it hopes to inspire as to the inevitability of India as the global center of production. But it will also have the capacity to defend this position with a new military strength, allied with Russia. Who only knows what that would eventually mean, in particular with talk of a new Cold War between the US and Russia*?

This montage-y image  could be mistaken for one produced 70 years ago, were it not for the
wind turbines. I love the hope provided by the color contrasts of sustainable technology against a bleak hospital seagreen background, smokestacks notably lack the smoke characteristic of dirty industrial development very common in China.

Charles Sheeler: he glorified, and beautified technology, making it a subject of awe, highlighting
its power. This, an elevator shaft gives us a true impression of height - and feels
like it must have inspired a Hitchcock film

Alexander Rodchenko, Suchov-Sendeturm (Shuchov transmission tower), 1929.
Gelatin silver print, 5 13/16 x 8 7/8 in. © Rodchenko & Stepanova Archive, DACS 2010

*Vinay Shukla for Russia Insider. "Here's Why India is Vitally Interested in Good Russia Relations Sep 18, 2015. http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/64262/sovietnazieconom00temi.pdf

Sumit Kumar for The Diplomat. New Momentum for India-Russia Relations?: In a state visit, Indian PM Narendra Modi gives the relationship a boost. January 03, 2016. http://thediplomat.com/2016/01/new-momentum-for-india-russia-relations/

Andrej Krickovic and Yuval Weber. Why a new Cold War with Russia is inevitable. Brookings Institute blog: September 30, 2015. http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/09/30-new-cold-war-with-russia-krickovic-weber