Do this. Take that. Eat this. Drink that.
For as long as we’ve been in the VMS sector, we’ve watched it influence, shape, even decide, consumer buying behaviour. Brands have told consumers what they should want and why, making supply, demand and innovation a one sided act. And consumers have accepted it, because why wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t you trust the experts?
Yet, over the past few years, we’ve seen a shift in consumer sentiment. A pretty radical one, actually. People have become more curious and less passive. Not only are they taking their health more seriously, due in large part to Covid, but they’re taking it more personally.
They’re deciding what they want, need and expect now and are evolving to lead the market.
Which means the most successful companies are the ones that are evolving to follow.
One such company is Known – one of our best partners.
As an ambitious startup in a saturated market, Known wanted to enter with standout products that could be produced in reasonably low quantities. But they kept coming up against the same issue – generic products that needed an extremely large MOQ.
However, the more research they did, the more they realised they were up against something even worse. The formulation of most collagen products lack a complete, efficacious nutrient profile, with either too little collagen or more than is needed, adding cost. In addition, where vitamin C is added it only has an absorption rate of 15-20%.
Knowing this, they decided they wanted to create a product that actually made the difference it promised.
A product that worked, and worked better than ever before.
Amy Nicholson- Brand Manager
“We knew that we wanted to create this brand and we knew that we wanted the product to be the best in the market but we didn’t necessarily know how to do that. From start to finish, they hand-held us through the entire process. We gave them an initial brief in terms of; ‘this the brand, this is who we are and this is the level of product we want to create’ and what they came back with is actually better than we could have ever anticipated.”
That’s where we came in. Our team of NPD experts listened to their brief and came back with Liposomal Technology; a specialist technique that ensures the body absorbs as much of the supplement as possible.
Liposomes are nano-sized fat bubbles that protect the integrity of the ingredients, allowing them to pass through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream. From there, they attach to the cells and are delivered to where they are most needed within the body.
We used this technology to create a formula that far exceeded anything on the market in terms of efficacy, allowing for 98% vitamin C absorption, compared to vitamin C in other products which had an absorption rate as low as 15%, in addition to the highly bioavailable hydrolysed collagen used.
We then developed the formula into a product that was in keeping with their brand values, as well as the commercial necessities and low MOQs of their startup business model, working with their in-house team to take it through to fulfilment.
A product that changed the industry and followed the consumer.