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