Approached by group founder John Godfrey of NetGain Marketing Ltd, I was commissioned to deliver a new corporate identity with supporting brand guidelines, accompanied by a ground-up website and app design with integrated e-commerce solution and online marketing strategy for Just-a-Drop Brands — “Europe’s Leading Supplier of Promotional Branded Drinks, Drinkware, Sweets, Snacks & Confectionery”.

Within an ever-evolving digital landscape, promotional merchandise and its apparent commonly misconceived limited shelf-life had become an increasingly distant option for marketing professionals. It was clear Just-a-Drop brands needed its products to work harder for customers; to this end I highlighted the shortfall and selected several leading gamification partners to assist in delivering measurable meaningful experiences. Customers now select the desired “SmartMerch” interactive campaign for their desired product at checkout (eg. a branded game with leaderboard), where a unique QR code is system generated and linked to an online competition with unique Terms & Conditions applied, respectively by country.

Established in 2013, JAD help clients increase brand-awareness with innovative, cost-effective campaigns while now delivering these all important measurable results. NetGain Marketing clients include ITV, Guinness, Bing, GSK, Vodafone, Network Rail, Cartoon Network and numerous other big brands.

Sample investment deck content:

The sector represents 4.4% of a £827m UK industry.

Project deliverables including:

New company logo and brand guidelines.
UX / UI Design: Ground-up website and app origination, with online marketing strategy including cross and upsell integration.
Investment Deck with SWOT Analysis + five-year plan.
Packaged digitally integrated online solutions for clients inc. gamification, using QR coded merch to generate measurable and meaningful experiences.
New stores on Amazon and eBay to bolster trade and organic search, with scalable fulfilment.
Monthly JAD newsletter delivering key insights and hot marketing tips for subscribers.
Customer loyalty systems inc. coupon based promotions and multi-buy incentives.
Company values defined, including:

Customer Obsession
Passion for Invention
Operational Excellence
Long Term Thinking
Corporate & Social Responsibility

Affiliate marketing initiatives to support resellers and slingshot international reach.
Creation of Bubbles the company mascot, plus an aligned virtual assistant and promotional soft toy.
Recommendation: Endorsement of essential online tools inc. ClickCease, HubSpot and Hootsuite etc.
Since the pandemic employers are paying close attention to new Corporate HR Wellness initiatives, as such it was important JAD endorse the new category across its range of products — Efforts were made to identify and source additional healthy options across the range.

Meet Bubbles

JAD’s new virtual assistant

Whilst engaged in a ZOOM call with the group founder I noticed a third party sporadically joining the conversation and it soon transpired this was Bubbles, an African Grey parrot. With no escape for this much loved family pet I soon illustrated, animated and reincarnated Bubbles a fitting mascot / virtual assistant. What’s more, customers are now rewarded with their very own Bubbles soft toy as part of series of JAD promotional incentives — We also brought Bubbles to life with a battery powered voice box, sporting some of his favourite things to say.

New sample home page design:
JAD historically only displayed product; moving on, we decided to visually introduce the human element of joy and express how it may feel to receive a thoughtfully selected product, or interactive bolt-on by using fresh and vibrant captivating imagery.

Example promotional hero banners

2023 status: Project completed / over to dev. and investors.