Interview: Ketnipz

Tell us more about Ketnipz, the mental health bean, and how it came about!

I began Ketnipz back in 2016 as a way to cope with burnout from school and other pressures in my life at the time. It was a bit of a silly project to begin with and I really didn’t expect it to go much further than my bedroom, but something about the Bean must’ve struck a chord! It’s astonishing to me seeing what began as a self-help project evolve into something so universal and relatable.

Ketnipz a very strong social platform – how do you create social media content to relate to your audience?

When it comes to Ketnipz, we try to think of our work as an antidote to all the negativity that comes with social media. If the feed is showing you all sorts of doom-and-gloom, we want to be the post that makes you to laugh and escape all of that for a minute or two. I really believe that the things we consume regularly online play such a huge part in shaping our moods - so the impact of creating positive and uplifting content is immeasurable.

How relevant is Ketnipz to the ongoing global conversations about mental health?

I’d like to think very relevant; from our ongoing collaboration with Instagram on the Kind Comments Campaign - Ketnipz’ message of positivity and mental health awareness has grown and grown exponentially. More and more brands are becoming aware of the great impact this kind of messaging has – whether that’s for consumerism or not – it’s still great this message is being spread to all walks of life.

On the subject of mental health awareness, what more could done, do you think, by content creators, to ensure inclusivity for all?

Most likely, whenever we experience kindness from a stranger we reciprocate that kindness and pay it forwards; content creators have wide platforms to support this kind of messaging of daily good deeds, helping strangers

and just keeping kindness front of mind. I do believe this is very prevalent within the content creators space right now, and it will most likely only grow from here!

And of course the partnership between Glue Creative Thinking and Ketnipz?

It was an incredibly pleasant surprise when I received the email from Glue broaching the subject; we had been working together on a project with Paramount’s, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where I was a judge on the Prospect 100 Design Competition panel. It felt like Glue read my mind as I’ve been wanting to broaden into the licensing and collaborations space in a bigger way for quite some time. I’m incredibly proud of the collaborations Ketnipz has been a part of so far and I’m excited to see where we can go with Glue’s stella black book and strategy building!

Which brands have you worked with to date?

I’ve had the honour of already working with Instagram, Snap, Apple, Samsung Mobile, Armani Exchange amongst many others, and with Glue we have some really exciting conversations in works across apparel, lifestyle, beauty, food & confectionary, consumer products… you name it! We’re launching into the arena with some big names that we can’t wait to share with you!

Can you tell us more about your partnership with Glue Creative Thinking?

It’s been incredibly helpful having Glue as our agent in this space, from their initiative and intuitive thinking, epic contacts and organised strategy planning; everything is seamless and coming together at a pace we couldn’t manage by ourselves with everything else we have to look after internally. The team is a joy to work with and we’re really grateful for the foreseeable years working alongside them to grow the Ketnipz brand and the positive impact our bean has across the globe. Ketnipz, the globally recognised bean and mental health advocate, known for its friendly and relatable comics on Instagram, has chosen Glue Creative Thinking to represent UK licensing and brand collaborations.