Journal

How do you convince consumers to spend more money on a zero-waste beer? In the current issue 07/2023 of creativ verpacken, our Creative Director Paul Valentiner describes the strategy behind the new communication campaign for Knärzje, the first ecologically certified zero-waste beer available throughout Germany, brewed from leftover bread.

You can find the whole article here

At echd, every 3rd Friday of the month means: FREI-YAY!

A good corporate culture is the most important factor for long-term, consistent success and satisfaction. Our employees are the essence of all ideas, designs and data that leave our creative forge and therefore a positive environment, personal development potential and sufficient space for regeneration are a must for us as an employer.

As Managing Director and Partner, I therefore not only have to think about the next design concept, but also about how our team can continue to deliver exceptional ideas. Work-life balance and the four-day week have long been a topic on social media and during our restructuring process from khdesign to echd two years ago, this topic kept coming back to me.

Introducing a complete 4-day week from one day to the next? At first glance, that's quite a psychological and financial blow for a company. So why not start a little smaller and give it a chance? For example, with a day off every 3rd Friday of the month. So 12 free days for all of us. Hooray!

Our concerns:

• What will customers say if we are suddenly no longer available on Fridays?
  
• How much order volume will we lose by taking this step?
  
• Will we manage to complete all our projects in less time?

Our goals:

• To give our employees the opportunity to relax better and FINALLY get things done that would otherwise be left undone during the week.
  
• Make our employees happy and be happy about it too.
  
• To create an even more attractive workplace for our employees.
  
• Not higher, faster, further, but mindful, better, nicer!
  
• Being a pioneer and actively shaping the movement towards better working.

Our conclusion after 2 years of FREI-YAY:

An employment relationship is like a good relationship based on the fact that both parties trust each other and are happy to give. The joy of Free Friday is and remains great and it is very nice to see how well it is used and celebrated by all echdies. Free Friday is an investment in the health, performance and happiness of our employees and part of the gratitude we can show them as an employer.

One thing is clear - Fridays off are here to stay and we as an employer are not standing still. =)

Once again this year, Anuga in Cologne, the leading trade fair for food and drink, brought together countries and eating habits from all over the world. Living cultural diversity gathered in one exhibition hall - great and inspiring at the same time! In no other product category is it so important to showcase the taste appeal in order to optimally appeal to consumers at the shelf. We were all the more curious to discover the latest trends on the market, to visit our Food & Beverage customers at their stands and, of course, to meet interesting new companies.

Our learnings from Anuga 2023:

- Plant-based products are no longer purely an alternative product, but are convincing with great recipes, few additives and delicious taste

- Protein products are still on the rise and are conquering more and more new product groups

- High quality is in demand: whether jams, sweets or savory snacks - the range of products for the daily “little luxury” is still large

- Aesthetic design is also becoming increasingly important for everyday products

Pharma is different. And so are we. From our more than 40 years of experience in working with pharmaceutical companies, we know that relaunch projects in this sector require a particularly sure instinct. We were able to observe this again during our visit to expopharm 2023 in Düsseldorf, the largest pharmaceutical trade fair in Europe. Consistency and modernity - it's all about the right mix. In no other industry does recognition play such an important role as it does here. Nevertheless, it is important to gently adapt pharmaceutical products to the times, because target groups - regardless of age - continue to evolve and so do their expectations of the products they consume.

These are our three success factors for a successful pharmaceutical relaunch:

1. gentle modernization of all packaging components, from key visuals to typography

2. strengthening competence and highlighting the product USPs

3. keeping regular users in mind and ensuring recognition

Simply amazing! With our redesign for Knärzje, we convinced the jury of the Red Dot Award 2023 and won in the discipline “Product Design: Packaging”.

About the Red Dot Award

With around 20,000 entries every year, the Red Dot Design Award is one of the largest design competitions in the world and looks back on a history of over 60 years: in 1955, a jury came together for the first time to evaluate the best designs of the time. In the 1990s, Red Dot CEO Professor Dr. Peter Zec developed the name and brand of the award. Since then, the coveted “Red Dot” award has been the internationally highly respected seal of outstanding design quality.

In 2023, the products submitted were assessed in 51 competition categories. This year's entries came from 60 countries. As different as the products are, they are united by their design quality, which has now also been confirmed by an internationally recognized and independent panel of experts.

About the project

KNÄRZJE brews beer from leftover bread and was recently awarded the sustainability prize in a program on VOX. By redesigning the packaging and developing the product communication, we have now taken the brand experience beyond the moment of purchase and consumption. We transferred the brand's commitment to sustainability and climate neutrality to the printed inside of the 4-pack and the back label of the bottles, for example.

You can find the whole case study here here

We are delighted that our Knärzje project has now also convinced the top-class jury of the German Brand Awards 2023! For the redesign and optimization of the brand communication, echd was awarded in the discipline “Excellence in Brand Strategy and Creation - Brand Design Packaging”. The German Brand Award is THE award for successful brand management in Germany, judged by an interdisciplinary panel of experts from brand management and brand science. It discovers, presents and honors unique brands and brand makers.

And there is even more reason to celebrate: in Berlin, Knärzje Managing Director Dan Anthes was recognized for his excellent brand management and mission and awarded “Best Of Best - Sustainable Brand of the Year”. He also took home an additional award as “Winner” in the “Excellent Brands - Fast Moving Consumer Goods” category. We would like to congratulate our customer Knärzje on this phenomenal honor!

Time to party! 🎉🥂

About the project

KNÄRZJE brews beer from leftover bread and was recently awarded the sustainability prize in a program on VOX. By redesigning the packaging and developing the product communication, we have now taken the brand experience beyond the moment of purchase and consumption. We transferred the brand's commitment to sustainability and climate neutrality to the printed insides of the 4-pack and the back label of the bottles, for example.

You can find the whole case study here

Dublin, May 12, 2023

Good day, Ireland! In mid-May, our Managing Directors Nadine and Max and our Creative Director Paul traveled to the epda congress in the Irish metropolis of Dublin. Under the motto “How to navigate in times of change”, the program included exciting expert presentations and lots of networking with design colleagues from all over Europe. We would like to share some of the exciting topics with you here.

Rethinking diversity.

Diversity and inclusion have long since ceased to be trendy topics; rather, these terms reflect the desire to reflect reality, including that of our creative sector. With the figures in her presentation, Boma Krijgsman (Talent, Diversion and Inclusive Manager at JDO in the UK) gave us food for thought in this regard: Only 13% of all design jobs worldwide are held by people from a black, Asian or other minority background, while 88% of all design managers are white. In addition to ethical considerations, there are also economic benefits to better integrating minorities into the design landscape. To name just one example of many: Against the backdrop of our increasingly ageing society, we as designers should be thinking and designing packaging in a much more age-appropriate way.

Generation Shift.

As a panel speaker, our Managing Director Nadine shared her experiences on the topic of “Generation Shift in Agencies” on stage. Whether as a company or agency, it is always a challenge to follow in big footsteps, to maintain a successful company as the next generation, to adapt it to the changing times and to lead it into the future with strength. One of the topics discussed during the panel was the optimal time frame in which a generational change should take place. According to Nadine, there is no general, blanket answer to this. “In my case, it was many years in which my father took me by the hand and never missed an opportunity to share his knowledge and experience with me.” When changing within a family-run company, two things are particularly important to her: “Firstly, respect for the other person's view of things. And secondly, a lot of patience.”

New Technologies.

Few topics are currently more hotly debated than artificial intelligence. The groundbreaking changes will significantly alter the working world of tomorrow and the creative industry in particular is already feeling the effects of the new tools such as Chat-GPT, Midjourney and Adobe's new tools and a new era of the creative process. With his impressive practical examples, Viktor Konovalow (Creative Director at Dragon Rouge, Warsaw) convincingly demonstrated how we as designers can benefit from the new possibilities and that we will by no means become completely obsolete tomorrow. Because what counts in the end is always the initial idea.

While AI is significantly changing the way we work, our consumer behavior is also facing a veritable revolution. The blockchain and the metaverse, as well as the purchasable digital content integrated into them, already represent a huge market. And brands such as Gucci, Starbucks and KIA have already set up entire marketplaces to benefit from this potential tomorrow. Matthias Lechner (founder and Creative Director of NFBrands.X, Austria) provided us with valuable insights on this topic and showed us how we will meet for digital meetings in the metaverse or go shopping there in the future. The highlight here is that even the exclusively digital closet via NFTs has real value. Already today, a million euros a day are spent on skins (clothes for avatars) in the computer game Fortnite.

Conclusion.

We are delighted that we are once again able to meet up regularly with our colleagues from Europe for events despite further crises in the world. And not only because of the highly topical issues and insights, but above all because of the informal atmosphere. More than ever, this shows how important it is to regularly exchange ideas within the industry in order to be optimally equipped as an agency for this exciting and world-changing decade.

You can find more impressions of our epda trip on Instagram. Check out this Reel!

What is the epda?

The European Brand & Packaging Design Association (epda) offers its members a platform for networking and exchanging knowledge on trends and packaging design at European level.

www.epda-design.com

Foto Credit: Moira Lawson