Those who know me know I’m mad about markets. Let me get up at five in the morning and get there at the crack of dawn in order to find the greatest bargains. I already know where to find things that inspire me and where I can get lost among piles of junk and leave with nothing.
With branding, sometimes you have to enter new markets in order to find refreshing worlds. We’ve been in the international market for a long time, with large-scale projects in LA and Italy. Recently, we have expanded our international operations with exciting projects and have established a branding foothold in Portugal, England, Germany and Norway, and we’re far from finished.
SAKARÉ is a chain of luxury cosmetics and spa products located in London and planning to open branches in other European locations. It’s exciting to be the branding company that was chosen to stand behind a brand that lives in London, which is considered the branding capital of the world.
Just one year ago SAKARÉ was a vision of a group of entrepreneurs. A dream that has become a reality – together with us.
Every project like this that we receive kindles us a new flame in us. What will the inspiration be? How will we renew and surprise? How will we manage to build a brand that will speak in with unique voice and make its audience listen?
We began with the basics. About a year ago, we attended the CosmoProf exhibition in Bologna, Italy, together – a designer, a strategist, the manufacturer and the owner of the company. This is one of the world’s largest cosmetics exhibitions. Dozens of huge hangars displaying packaging, containers and groundbreaking technological innovations. All the world’s major cosmetics companies attend the exhibition every year in order to find innovations. So we got down to business. We handpicked the most perfect packaging and the most successful containers. We gathered inspiration and studied the European market.
We returned to Israel for a few days and quickly took off – this time to London. To explore the streets, meet the British prestige, refine and understand the target audiences, recognize the sales strategy, visit the designated locations, familiarize ourselves with the local competition, understand the meaning of luxury and prestige in the European market, who is seeking them and, in particular, what they expect to find.
/ / Irit (on the right) working on location / /
From that point on we began to work simultaneously in several areas:
The strategic department cracked the DNA of the new brand, worked on building a unique brand story and led the naming process that ultimately culminated with the selection of the name SAKARÉ.
The name is derived from the Japanese term SAKARI, which means the highest peak that a woman can reach. The name was an exact match for the brand story we wanted to create – a story about a woman who is on a constant journey, who always wants to improve and move forward, both inside and out.
At the same time, we studied the corresponding international arena, we mapped the competition, we studied the target audience and found the relevant positioning for the brand in the international market.
The design arm went into action to create a prestigious, international, rich and high quality brand. Slowly we created the brand language. The logo, colors, materials, fonts, layouts and packaging. And it all started to come together and take shape.
Suddenly we all felt that a kind of magic was happening. All the elements were working together perfectly. Exquisite packaging, unique containers, the store design, the signs and the website. All of them had originated with a great concept and had grown far beyond that concept.
See for yourselves! The brand, which took the market by storm in December 2012, with flagship stores in Covent Garden, Bond Street and the elegant Westfield Shopping Centres in England and branches throughout Europe, presented unique visibility and uniform luxuriousness, implementing the brand language that we created.
New Bond St. // LONDON
Covent Garden // LONDON
South Molton St. // LONDON
SAKARÉ has over ten stores throughout Europe. They are on the verge of further expansion and entry into new countries in Western and Eastern Europe. We wish them success and thank them for allowing us to lead the process and for granting us creative and professional freedom. Thanks to that freedom and our fruitful cooperation with the company, we were able to create a winning international brand.