Danielle spoke with Courtney Ismain, Co-Founder of Jamii, which is a community and home for black British creators and makers. Jamii is a discovery platform for British brands on the up. A discount card that is a community giving users up to 40% off. They want to introduce you to the small businesses who know what you need.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Courtney shares how Jamii came about from the first wave of the Black Lives Matter movement and how off the back of that, there was a growing interest in where people could find black-owned businesses.

The Jamii card, which is a discount card, incentivises people to go off the beaten track and discover new black-owned businesses they might not have heard of before.

Jamii is impact-driven and community is a really important part of what they do. Courtney explains how they always try to be easily accessible to make people feel involved and be action-led.

Courtney explains how Clear Channel approached Jamii to collaborate on their Compass initiative, aimed at supporting black-owned businesses. Together, they launched a competition that attracted hundreds of applicants, with ten winners receiving two weeks of free high-street advertising.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Customers, businesses and organisations alike, are able to kind of identify what we're about and align themselves with our mission and the opportunities present themselves because I guess these people who agree with our mission, they make themselves known and then we're able to work together, if that makes sense’.

‘The way we work with businesses, we kind of have a package called partnership. These are all the businesses that are our partners. We list their products and we send them regular opportunities’.

‘We decided that we want to refresh Jammie membership a little bit so something that we did in February was we hosted a focus group with some of our ride or die members. Honestly speaking, we're not trying to hide anything or make maybe membership look better than it is’.

‘We reached out to Airbnb. We asked them for a donation for a grant fund so they gave us 20,000 pounds and we were able to distribute that to four businesses, 5000 pounds each’.

CONNECT WITH THE GUEST

Jamii website: https://lovejamii.com/

Search ‘ukjamii’ on social media

ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKE

Danielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.

GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05

WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4

CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/

SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke

This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle spoke with Susan C. Allen Augustin, Co-Founder & Chief Brand Officer of Here We Flo, which makes natural plant-based personal care for life’s messiest moments. They tackle sustainability and stigma with natural products and funny, feminist and fierce approaches.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Susan shares how Here We Flo came about from meeting Co-Founder Tara in the toilets at The London School of Economics, to taking the business global.

Menstrual care brands have always been built around being discrete. Susan explains how they had to cut through a lot of cultural shame and embarrassment around menstruating, and build a dedicated fanbase.

Susan tells the story of how they won the Sky Zero Footprint Fund, which recognises brands that are committed to driving positive behaviour change and tangible impact towards a more sustainable future. This secured them £1 million worth of ad spend with Sky.

Here We Flo launched their products in Tesco recently, Boots is a long term partner who’ve quadrupled their distribution and they are soon to be launching with the UK’s second largest grocer.

BEST MOMENTS

‘It was really helped by a lot of progress around the climate change movement and recognising the damage that single use plastics were doing in the ocean. As a small business, there's only so much pressure you can put on your manufacturers or suppliers to use alternative materials’.

‘There's a reason why funny is first, and funny feminists and fierce is really using humour to break the ice, because there is generally a stigma and a shame that's been socialised around these topics’.

‘Early on, there was a tendency to challenge or question what we were doing, but we met in one of the top universities in the world. We did the research and Tara wrote a dissertation on the business case for this so what we were saying, we weren't saying flippantly’.

‘We were really intentional from the start to spend the time thinking about our mission, our vision, our values, and then we got to design our recruitment processes, which is super important. That's how you're bringing people into the company and those values are a part of that from that first phone interview’.

CONNECT WITH THE GUEST

Here We Flo’s website: https://www.hereweflo.co/

Search ‘Here We Flo’ on social media

ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKE

Danielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.

GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05

WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4

CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/

SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke

This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle spoke with Grant Mitchell, Creative Director at Future and Associate Lecturer in Graphic Design at Staffordshire University. Grant is an international award-winning graphic designer with over 25 years industry experience. As Creative Director at Future he works with his team to design brand identities and creative communications for clients across a diverse range of sectors including; healthcare, cultural, not-for-profit, education, property and SME's.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Grant talks about his early steps into branding and how he started his own business but it isn’t for everyone.

Danielle and Grant know each other from Staffordshire University where Grant is a lecturer and Danielle was a student. Teaching wasn't part of the plan but Grant has found it to be humbling and flattering that he’s been able to have a positive impact on so many students' lives.

Future is a creative agency working across four key disciplines; design, websites, branding and motion. Grant talks us through how working with a client is about collaboration and that pushback can help the project become stronger.

Grant and Danielle talk about the changing world of creative design and how time and circumstances have played a huge role in that.

BEST MOMENTS

‘When you get feedback, when you're generating ideas like the process we go through, do your homework, speak to clients, speak to stakeholders, understand the audience, understand the parameters of the project, understand the sector and then generate, generate as much stuff as you possibly can.’

‘What you are trying to do is move a client forward from one position, to a much better position that will help support their business objectives. Whether that's designing a better website that helps drive inquiries or creating a campaign that communicates important information, making a difference, it's very hard.’

On working for Future: ‘I feel like I'm starting again and in a good way. I love seeing the team create stuff and I love us winning new clients and I love us pushing on, adding to the team.’

On advice for starting a business: ‘You've got to love what you do but that love and passion has to be coupled with business acumen.’

CONNECT WITH THE GUEST

Grant Mitchell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantatfuture/

Future: https://designbyfuture.co.uk/

ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKE

Danielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.

GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05

WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4

CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/

SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke

This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.