MERAKI
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Introducing... Meraki
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Our story begins...
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Immerse yourself into our fresh, new brand emerging onto the homeware scene, Meraki. Japanese culture is at the heart and core of our brand, drawing inspirations from the concept of the zen garden, relaxation and mindfulness. Our brand name, Meraki, is the Japanese phrase for “to do something with soul, creativity or love; to put something of yourself into your work”. The essence of our brand revolves around putting your stress and challenges (a quite personal and emotive concept) into this product and creating something unique and artistic at the end of it; essentially baring your heart and soul. There is an exceptional designer behind this brand who has given Meraki its own unique identity. Introducing…. Pearl Cavaney. Pearl is the brains and artistry behind this brand and its products and she herself has essentially turned her stress into creativity by creating our brand’s products as she shares her stories with our customers and translates the same state of calmness onto our community. Our story begins with ‘The Zen Pen’ our first ever product that we want to share with you. Pearl designed this product because, being a student herself, she has suffered through intense periods of stress which can lead to your mental health decreasing, making everyday life increasingly overwhelming. To relieve herself from stress, Pearl often uses her hands through drawing or fidgeting which lead to the creation of The Zen Pen; allowing fellow young adults to be able to engage their mind and escape their everyday anxieties. Read on to follow our story and join the Meraki community...
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Our Inspiration
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O UR
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N ISIO
As an emerging brand in the homeware market, our long term vision is to become a brand leader and to be greatly renown amongst our competitors for offering an innovative product, that caters directly to our consumers’ needs in reducing their stress levels. Upon becoming an eminent brand, we would like to expand our product portfolio with similar products surrounding our empathetic values.
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OPOSE... R P E
Meraki want to provide you, our consumer, a form of escapism; immersing yourself in a calming atmosphere, far from the pressures of reality. Our first product,’The Zen Pen’, ideally plans to turn our consumers’ stress into creativity through the act of doodling and drawing; creating a piece of art and something to reflect on once they are done.
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INNOVATION WHAT WE VALUE...
Here at Meraki, our brand values run at the core of our brand and drive our behaviour on an everyday basis. We aim to translate these values through our products and allow our customers to share these values.
FREEDOM INCLUSIVITY 9
GET TO KNOW US...
Our personality derives from the name of our brand, Meraki. This phrase translates to “to do something with soul, creativity, or love; to put something of yourself into your work.� Therefore, we revolve around being soulful, motivating and empathetic as we want to encourage you to prioritise self-care in order to benefit your mental wellbeing and this runs at the core of our brand and is the main thing we want to give to our customers.
SOULFUL
EMPATHETIC
MOTIVATING 10
THE WAY WE SPEAK... INVITING
PASSIONATE APPROACHABLE 11
Meet ‘The Zen Pen’ 12
Our Zen Pen provides our customers with a new method to take breaks from periods of studying or working that communicates with your creative mind yet moving away from the overuse of technology. We are essentially engaging your minds and simultaneously maintaining your focus whilst relaxing; which the use of social media does not tend to do.
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OUR CONSUMERS
We did not want to define our customers by simple demographics yet more on behavioural attributes in order to take a more inclusive approach; welcoming everyone into our community.
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Our primary customer is a young adult whom may also be a student at either college or university, or alternatively working. This period can be exceedingly stressful and it can be hard to find coping mechanisms and forms of escapism that do not lead to detrimental behaviour
THE GROWING MINDS
THE EXPRESSIVE MINDS
Our secondary customer, we deem to be somewhat of a creative; working in one of the many creative industries. Their whole life revolves around creativity; their occupation; their hobbies and it’s something they are passionate about, thus they are looking something to do in their spare time that they can use to relax yet simultaneously, improve and maintain their creative ‘flare’ without the use of technology.
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COMMUNICATING WITH YOU
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Within our initial 12 months from launching our brand, we want to be able to connect and communicate with you; creating a strong relationship between our brand and yourself. We plan to do this across several social media platforms as well as our own published marketing campaigns and an exciting collaboration that we can’t wait to share with you!
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Our website has been created with you, the consumer, at mind. It is our main platform for selling our products and also features an ‘About Us’ page where customers can learn all about Meraki and our story; a ‘Collaborations’ page where you can view all our collab work and products and learn about the brands we work with; and also a ‘Join the Community’ page where you can log in or sign up for an account and interact with our brand.
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Community is something we strongly value here at Meraki, so it was vital for our website to allow our customers to connect with us as well as our social media. On this page you can login to your account and view any orders, but you can also share what you’ve done with our products and how you’ve worn them as well as viewing others. This page also features a ‘Share your story’ tab where you can write posts about what our products have done for you in terms of stress as well as reading other customers’ inspiring stories; bringing our community together as a family.
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OUR COLLABORATION
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Maison De Choup was established in crippling anxiety in his young adult life. suffered with several mental health issues similarly to how our product, ‘The Zen Pen’
2014, by George Hodgson who suffered from Hodgson, like many of our target consumers, has and used his own artwork as a coping mechanism, uses drawing to turn consumers’ stress into creativity.
These two brands directly resonate with each other, making a collaboration between the two both feasible and realistic for both brands’ finances due to the size of both companies; allowing the collaboration to be rolled out within a shorter time frame after our brand’s launch. Maison De Choup have a minimal aesthetic to their brand which matches both our designer’s preferred style and design of our products, meaning incorporating the essence of both brands within the collaboration would compliment each other and allow both brands to remain true to their brand identity.
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Our campaign together would revolve around raising awareness of mental health and charities who support mental health issues; YoungMinds being one to prioritise as Maison De Choup already work alongside them, donating 25% of proceeds from the “Words Fail Me” collection. Our aim is to make the collaboration as interactive as possible, with our hashtag #MyCalmwithMDC allowing you to keep updated with new releases for the collaboration and share your purchases with fellow people in the Meraki community and see what they’ve done on their journey towards taking control of your stress. The collaboration will include a limited ‘Zen Pen’ featuring the Maison De Choup logo and their slogan from the “Warrior not Worrier” collection; a series of tote bags including the Meraki logo and various Maison De Choup slogans; a collaboration t-shirt featuring our collaboration logo and a “Meraki” necklace. Our website will allow customers to choose a package of which items they would like to purchase, rather than having to buy a certain set of items as we wanted to be as adaptable and inclusive as possible as we are aware that not all customers will want all the items within the collaboration.
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Collaboration items:
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Collaboration items:
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Collaboration items:
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For the future of Meraki, we plan to create and release more innovative products in order to help as many people as we can with their everyday stresses through their creativity. Working with Maison De Choup has been a so empowering and we would love to continue our work with them to keep helping an amazing cause. In order to keep in touch with us and follow any updates, our social media and website is your best bet. Its our favourite way to communicate with our wonderful community so please keep updated with us and join the Meraki family!
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