Vipp

We began our work with Vipp during the global economic recession. At the time Vipp (which in Danish is the ‘opening and closing’ of the pedal bin in Danish), was and still is the equivalent of the Rolls-Royce of trash bins, retailing 3-4x higher than its closest competitor, simplehuman.

Planting the Danish flag of the Rolls-Royce of trash bins in the U.S.

n e t a was retained by Vipp’s Head of Sales, the grandson of the inventor of the world’s first pedal bin, Holger Egelund, to carve out a US market entry Omnichannel Strategy and strategic partner implementation that would achieve dramatic sales growth and significantly heighten Vipp’s visibility in the US. As Vipp was not yet ready to establish its eCommerce strategy within the US market at the time of market entry, stateside, which for us was thinking outside of the box; so we shifted our thinking towards strategic wholesale partners, eCommerce distribution partners and key marketing events (both physical and digital). To get started, we conducted a deep dive to first understand Vipp’s 76+ year old brand heritage, and the ways in which to most deeply resonate its narrative within the US design community. We coupled our deep dive into the brand with gaining a comprehensive understanding of both US and Danish Vipp operations to gauge the direction of our performance management in regards to scale parameters and what could ultimately support US market growth through omnichannel. Our operational discovery, entailed a full product assortment review factoring in margin opportunity (and all shipping logistics), US shipping logistics from a fulfillment perspective, as well as, design convictions to develop ideal distribution target materials.

Securing the global stamp of approval… MoMA’s permanent collection.

Based on price sensitivity and taking into context Vipp’s support of the arts throughout its European markets, we felt the strongest point of entry was to secure the most well recognized “good housekeeping” seal of approval in the art and design community… and that was induction into The Museum of Modern Art’s Architect & Design Collection. After careful appeal to MoMA’s curatorial and retail departments, Vipp was inducted into MoMA’s permanent design collection in November 2009 and subsequently picked up and featured within MoMA’s esteemed Design Store catalog (circulation = 1M+ households throughout the United States) additionally distributed online at momastore.org, its NYC stores and international licensed points of presence in Japan and South Korea (both online and in physical MoMA Design stores throughout Asia).

Once iconic design status had been achieved and distribution touch points were proliferating, we shifted gears to target other leading wholesale distribution opportunities such as the DWR cross-designer pollinated event in support of DIFFA that would continue to augment Vipp’s profile. Given no Vipp direct-to-consumer channel yet, we then established a meaningful partnership with Design Public, which supported Vipp’s online debut through a concerted SEO and Blog Influencer campaign that reached 60,000+ design aficionados and 15,000+ bloggers and influencers. As Vipp had already established a relationship with Water Works, (the bathroom), we then targeted the premium kitchen destination, synonymous with lux cooking, Williams-Sonoma.

Within 1 year we had literally cornered every room in the house, and achieved global recognition.

Our Results

n e t a partnered with Vipp for 6 months as they entered the US market at one of the most devastating time periods in US history for home luxury consumer purchases, but when strategy consulting is at play, significant growth and results can be achieved:

• Sales > +35% ahead of plan (during global recession)
• Achieved Y1 sales targets (6 mo ahead of schedule)
• MoMA collection + global prestige in the design community after 72 years in business = priceless