Jessica Kia didn't need anything else on her to-do list. As the Co-Founder of RJK Project, a special ops elite team of brand strategists and marketers, she is also a mom of three boys, two of which have special needs. Jessica and her husband, Raman Kia, founded their company in 2013 intending to apply everything they loved from working with agencies throughout their long careers in the Fashion industry. But ever since their sons were born with Autism – one of whom is non-verbal, they realized that they wanted a family business. Ideally, something that could be created, scaled, and perhaps sold, ultimately providing stability and security for their boys into adulthood. Neither of them knew what that could be at the time.
But like all great ideas, innovation comes from troubleshooting fundamental problems. It was the summer of 2017 on a scorching hot and sticky night. Raman had just come home to New Jersey from Manhattan. He decided to take a shower before bed. Jessica was in bed and almost asleep when she heard Raman yelling from the bathroom, "What are these horrible hard towels?! Who makes these towels, and why are they still wet from the morning?! I don't know which end I used to wipe which part of my body! Why do they keep falling off the hook?! "Raman's rant went on for a few moments and ended with Jessica simply promising to buy new towels.
She searched the internet for soft, plush, and fast-drying towels that hung properly, but after hours of in-depth research, she realized that no brand had all those characteristics. You could only choose between a bath towel (one size fits some) and a large bath sheet. She also learned that consumer towels were only guaranteed to last about thirty washes.
She felt like Goldilocks; nothing was entirely right. Then she realized that the towels at most luxury hotels were soft and plush (though not necessarily fast drying). She pondered why that was after seemingly thousands of washes. She shared her results with Raman, who decided to take it to the next level. He bought every brand of towel he could find, researched supply chains, cotton mills, the works. Raman started making prototype after prototype in search of creating the perfect towel. They finally found several family-owned farms in the Aegean region of Turkey, and after more than 50 prototype fails, decided that they were onto something. Using both of their marketing know-how, they agreed that they would start a direct-to-consumer towel business.
Enter stage right, a brand new towel brand named Havly, one that they say makes "delightfully good towels." Havly is developed with the quality of a luxury hotel towel and keeps its softness and luxurious plushness for 1000 washes. The Kias also created a signature loop so that the towels could hang on the corner of any standard door or hook without falling off. Every family member has a unique loop color so that a family can exclusively use white towels. They created a patent-pending Wünderweave where the top 2/3 of the towel is soft and luxurious, and the last 1/3 is a larger weave so that it's faster drying for that high-trafficked hand-drying area. Havly also dries hygienically- so you know where you've dried your hands versus other body parts.
So how did they go from a prototype to a brand? When a brand is born from scratch, there's a tried and true marketer's playbook that must be employed.
Here are the top 15 things Jessica Kia recommends thinking about when launching a new brand:
1. Ask yourself what void in the market you are filling or the problem you are solving? Be honest.
2. What unique approach are you taking to do so?
3. Ideate and create a prototype that you are proud of. Make something that you believe in. Don't settle because you will spend money trying to obscure the fact that your product is below standard.
4. Find an authentic cause to support. Havly supports DonorsChoose.org, a nonprofit organization that allows individuals to donate directly to public school classroom projects. For every towel purchased, Havly gives $1 to support teachers who teach special needs kids and enables the consumer to match it.
I hope that we build a customer base of people who want to buy Havly towels not only because they know they are quality towels, but because they feel good about the mission we are on.
5. New brands don't have to solve the world's most "unsolvable problems." There are plenty of locally important causes that brands can support where they can actually make an impact and solve the issue.
6. Leverage your own superpowers instead of outsourcing them to others. The Kias had been building other people's brands for over 20-years, why not develop their own?
7. Tackle brand awareness the old-fashioned way. Creating awareness for a new brand is challenging when you don't have a big budget. The Kias didn't want to pay influencers to promote their towels. They find the influencer economy disingenuous. They decided to leverage their friends to be product testers and authentic influencers for Havly. They are gifting towels to the people they know.
8. Friends and family received a promo code to buy the towels; they provided feedback not only on the product but on the whole site experience. For the Kias, the people they trust and know are a more significant currency than the one you can exchange on a social network.
9. They believe in word of mouth. That is, words coming out of a mouth and not out of a device.
10.Organic social media is not effective without media amplification. It's a pay to play ecosystem, but if you can align your content strategy with a social network's goals, your money will go further. Havly's goal is to create content that is inherently shareable because it delights. Jessica says, "If you create content that solicits what I call 'active engagement' – (shares, comments, saves), the platforms will charge you less for reach. After all, they love anything that keeps people on their social platforms longer, engaging more meaningfully than a 'passive engagement' (likes)."
If you create content that solicits what I call 'active engagement' – (shares, comments, saves), the platforms will charge you less for reach.
11. Go analog: catalogs, outdoor advertising, etc. There are amazing ways to blend sophisticated digital targeting data into older mediums, like Programmatic Direct Mail and TV or radio's transition to Podcasting.
12. Surprise and delight your existing customers when they least expect it – you wouldn't be here without them.
13. Do invest in strategic and targeted digital marketing to reach your ideal customers.
14. Use analytics and common sense to empathize with your customers and tailor your communication tactics. For example, we know you use your junky email just to sign up for offers – so don't be surprised when subsequent emails go unopened.
15. Never invest in envy.
According to Jessica Kia, "You can't protect great ideas. There will always be people that copy. In my experience, any ideas born solely as a defense to imitators have always been flawed. You just have to keep looking forward and invest in new ideas. I hope that we build a customer base of people who want to buy Havly towels not only because they know they are quality towels, but because they feel good about the mission we are on."
