A strong brand is a powerful tool.
Traditionally, branding has been utilised to attract consumer attention with the ultimate goal of conversion, but brands are beginning to realise that their influence doesn’t have to stop there. Businesses can (and should) be utilised as vehicles for change. Through compelling storytelling, strong brand messaging or undeniable value add, we are seeing more and more brands use their platforms for good. And it is no surprise, amidst the current climate crisis that this good has been heavily focused on improving the state of our planet.
As an agency and thought leader in brand strategy and visual communication, we feel a duty and responsibility to use our expertise to bring to life brands who honour purpose over profit. Our vision for the future of Smack Bang is to bolster sustainability by working with brands who inspire and use their voice to initiate positive and effective change.
To celebrate Earth Day, we interviewed a few members of our team on some recent brands we have launched that are pioneering sustainability in the market.
Project: Ethical Made Easy
with Tess Robinson, Founder and Creative Director
The decision to work with Ethical Made Easy was a no-brainer for Smack Bang. Ethical Made Easy provides convenience through curation to create a better tomorrow. By enabling its users to discover and shop the world’s most loved and sustainable brands all in the one space, Ethical Made Easy reimagines the way we shop — Facilitating ease for a generation who choose to shop with brands who align with their values.
The EME brand was founded on the premise that today,
75% of millennials are willing to pay more for an environmentally sustainable product.
(source)
By curating and amplifying the best conscious brands on the market today, EME champions genuine, game-changing sustainability, dispelling the thick layers of green-wash that plague the industry, successfully setting the standard for tomorrow’s world.
Founder of Ethical Made Easy, Jasmine Mayhead wanted to ensure that where she was spending her money was actively creating the world she wanted to live in.
“It’s a pretty simple world, really: where people are treated with dignity and respect and that both the planet and people have been cared for across all parts of the supply chain”
Founder, Jasmine Mayhead
With the intention to establish themselves as the go-to platform and trusted voice for ethical brands, Ethical Made Easy required a brand identity and digital platform that alluded to their playful and modern, but ultimately authoritarian persona—one that seamlessly aligned with their mission to bring about a better future.
Working with Jasmine was a genuinely inspiring process. She is incredibly knowledgeable about what the future holds for her industry and has an unwavering vision for how she will best contribute to that. The design choices as well as brand copy, imagery and media, had to grasp and reflect this degree of integrity and enthusiasm. The concept of ‘engagement’ became a major brand pillar in setting the tone and experience of the brand and influenced each and every touchpoint for the brand.
“Smack Bang helped us to find our footing, find what makes us different, and ultimately, helped us back ourselves enough to keep going. It’s been far from an easy journey, but the world we believe in is one worth fighting for and I’m so grateful that I get to do it alongside partners like Smack Bang.”
Jasmine Mayhead
Emma Primmer, Marketing Manager
Project: Phantm
Phantm was born with a founding vision to build a plastic-free planet. On first meeting, we were wildly impressed by the uniqueness of their offering, being the first company in Australia to introduce PHA, a groundbreaking material created from converted waste that breaks down in the natural environment without harm to our planet. PHA comes from nature and goes back to nature. Our team saw an opportunity to help build a social enterprise that is actively pioneering the circular economy and contributing to a plastic free future.
“Our Cofounders were shocked by the insidious petrochemical plastics problem that humans have created. In a bid to do better, Phantm was born to build a new natural materials company.”
Elliot Costello, Phantm Founder
Our team wanted to herald this vision and the impact that Phantm proposed at every touch point. We knew that the target audience was out there, anyone hoping for a more sustainable future and looking for solutions that positively impact both people and the planet.
“We needed a brand and mark that would communicate this complexity in an instant, through a somatic and felt sense. The brand needed to go beyond innovation to herald a whole new way of doing business, all while feeling deep-rooted enough to build trust for our licence to operate in this exciting new space. It was a big ask, and Smack Bang delivered.”
- Elliot, Phantm Founder
As an agency that aims to be a thought leader in our category, we are proud to support innovative thinkers and knowledge leaders. Our team were impressed with Phantm’s founding team from the get-go whose passion to challenge the status quo matched our enthusiasm to reinvent an entire category.
The resulting brand experience is one that has the ability to ‘rally a movement’, with a bold and impactful identity with an activist-like undertone. The Phantm brand is one that connects with a broad range of consumers to sell the notion of a better future for all.
Elodie Kongasiou, General Manager
Project: Worn For Good
Worn For Good is an ecommerce platform helping move fashion towards a circular economy whilst offering a creative solution to waste for the industry. With profits sent to charities that work to improve the lives of women and the health of our planet, Worn For Good’s vision and value add to the sustainable space was an initiative we couldn’t have been more excited to get behind. As part of our Smack Bang Foundation, we worked with founders Sophie Palmer and Pip Best to craft an identity and digital platform that demonstrates that fashion and compassion can co-exist.
Worn For Good set out to claim their space as leaders of conscious consumption, redefining how we think about the greater impact of our purchasing habits. Our brand system celebrates their purpose through design, emphasising the notion of a circular economy whilst alluding to the zero waste, zero production impacts of recycled clothing.
We were honoured to develop the identity and website of Worn For Good pro-bono under our Smack Bang Foundation. Pip and Soph are long standing industry friends and our collaboration was an organic and obvious partnership. Leading a team of female designers on a social project that supports Women’s Community Shelters (and now other social causes) felt completely aligned with us. Building an impact page that tracks the money raised to the different causes WFG supports was important, too, to provide an element of transparency and track the platform’s impact.
