A lot has happened in a year with Skav, we introduced our collection in the Netherlands in march 2009. Andwe got a new partner in our company: Maurice Van Houts. Expert in diamonds and owner of a jewelleryshop in Amsterdam. He forms together with Henk Van Velthoven our design team. On the picture (taken in Amsterdam on “de Magere Brug”) from left to right: Jorgen, Henk, Maurice & Maarten.

The BaselWorld Fair 2010

We decided that going to Basel was inevitable to put Skav on the worldmap. We brainstormed a lot in the months before and worked out some nice ideas to put our brand in the right spotlight. At least to our modest opninion. We were a bit worried how the Swiss people would react to some ideas. The ideas are not really extreme but for an average swiss inhabitant it could be little too much.

The things we came up with all shared a few things on the area of marketing: They are innovative, on the edge and creative. We also wanted to do something with our Dutch heritage.

We took quite a few pieces of Old Amsterdam cheese, this is the start of our story:  A slice of Old Amsterdam cheese represents the old & ancient Amsterdam. Skav, on the other hand, stands for the New Amsterdam. This make clear what and who we are. By the way it’s amazing, how foreign people love our cheese. Old Amsterdam was a hit in Basel! Now all we had to do was make sure the New Amsterdam, Skav would also be a success!

We also took another famous Dutch “delicatesse”. Drop (or liquorice). On the wrap we designed was: “with love from Amsterdam” which is ofcourse many times used and a classic. The liquorice was almost pulled out of our hands. It’s something else when you are always eating Toblerone.  Next year we bring more .

Also we brought some original Dutch design furniture and 2 bicycles. The furniture, a stool designed by Chris Ruhe from Den Bosch, attracted a lot of attention on our stand.

The fair started and the curious thing about the visitors is that every day the population of visitors is quite different. Day 1,2,3 starts with a lot of consumers, whereas day 4 and on the professionals come by the stands.

On day 2 we had our Green Graffiti guerilla marketing action.

We met enumerous people from a lot of different countries. We got a lot of positive feedback on our brand and marketing ideas. Also the dutch and international media knew their way to our stand. Who were behind that new, small brand? And how did they draw so much attention?

The most important thing we realized was to learn to know our (potential) customers. We did achieve this! We are in the month after the fair in contact with several countries. In Switzerland & Austria we started already. Promising contacts we have in USA, Mexico, Germany and France.

To conclude about Baselworld 2010: We are very positive about the fair and the fun we made and are happy to be on BaselWorld 2011 again. Hopefully to meet you there!

In the meantime you can always contact us through: info [at] skav.com

The past few months were busy as no other. We have been contacting
potential partners for distribution in surrounding countries. We also
did a very intense market inquiry in Germany and spent a lot of time on
getting people to know Skav.
Besides this we took a good look in the mirror and asked ourselves how
we could further improve the service to our distributors and their
customers. As a result many good things happened and therefore we are
ready to get 2010 started!

Skav on film

Maarten Bakker and Henk van Velthoven have taken charge of the marketing per September 2009. As a result many new things are initiated: the most eye catching event is an appearance in the TV show (pilot) “Bij ons in de BV” from Jort Kelder. Not only did Henk have a one minute pitch on the website but also a promotion film has been recorded that will be played on the website of the show.  The film can also be viewed on our website and will be made available for all Skav dealers. To watch the one minute film, click on the picture below.

Skav web shop

Another feature we added is the Skav Web shop. Here you can view the collection and immediately purchase the model you like. You can choose to pick up the watch at your local jeweler store or receive the watch straight from Skav. For payment you can use Ideal or a credit card. To create more brand awareness for Skav and to be able to present the watch straight to the consumer this web shop is the ideal tool. To make sure we get in contact with our customer, a wide spread SMS promotion starts today. On billboards, narrowcasting screens and on the outside of vending machines, a poster or projection of Skav is shown. Click on the picture to see more.

Send an SMS and have a chance to win a Skav watch!  Every contestant receives a discount code for our web shop. Thus we promote the brand, the web shop and give our customer the possibility to view the collection whenever they want. We also have sent out a press-release in November concerning our Web-shop: We have a quite unique proposal for retailers: We give a bonus for every watch sold in our Web-shop. You can click here for details.

Store locator

One of the other changes is a new look and feel for our website. Definitely the  most  eye catching is our store locator. Naturally it will point you to our nearest Skav dealers but will also tell you how far away the next possible options is.

Just punch in your city and the available Skav dealers are shown on a map. Check it out  on www.skav.com and choose “store locator”.