The "Supernormaal" global brand | Adriana Hoppenbrouwer, HEMA | OnBrand '17

I didn't know that hey my Swedish was at home so I just that told Olin our next country maybe Sweden there now prioritize that one good afternoon you all I always like to start the presentation with your hands up of who knows Hamer in the room so I can get a picture of okay great a lot of people know Hamer we are in the Netherlands and it's still the case but I guess that a lot of you don't really know the story behind him and and actually what we believe in and how our belief drives what we do and that's what I would like to share with you now and then and also the lessons we learned by living for our beliefs and we starts from the start from the very beginning and I'd love for you to picture Europe the Netherlands in the 1926 and the Belle époque area whereby wealth was started to be built and back then there was a group of people that had access to luxury products they had access to goods they have traveled they have seen what good looks like and for those people those small group of people I knew innovation was created and was called department stores and the department stores back them or for the very few and you can imagine that the staff would speak French the doors would be open by a butler with white gloves and it would be acclimatized so in the winter it would be warm and you would have liked the best service in Europe in the Netherlands he would have all the fantastic products you can dream about but it was for the very few and actually that's when Hema got these insights hang on but why great quality great service is only for few people what if we would deliver great service great quality for everybody and that's when Hema was born and we created the foot first department store for everybody and that's for everybody is really cool to what we do and the essence of the brands and we believe in our mission is that happiness lies in the simple things in life that you don't need a butler to have great service that I smile and a friendly welcome is more than enough and will make your day and we love and we truly love making daily life simpler and more fun for everybody and that is really the big mantra in our corridor is how can I make the life easier how can we make it more fun for everybody not for the few for everybody and the way we do it it's through super normal products and experience and super normal is our design philosophy which in a nutshell is if you do the normal things perfectly they become super so back to you it lies in the simple things and we're really obsessed about improving our products improving our service and improving our experience every day to get to super Nomo and super nova is also a design compass so it goes beyond products and a lot of people have heard that hem is all about great design great quality affordable price and is always true it's in our compass but there is much that the brand and the way we do things as much as about form as function so everything that we new needs to be clevon is to work you know it's quality to the next level optimistic and we love that one because we really think that it's distinctive the fact that we are an optimistic brand and we sell optimism to the world and you can see it in our designs you can see in the colors we choose but you can see in the campaigns we do you can sync the jokes we make when the website crash so you're gonna see a little joke and it tried to actually put that optimistic weaved in in everything we do and the last one really important especially in the world we live in customers want it convenient they want it easy and I really obsessed about making daily life easier convenience so that is like the the complex when we are designing anything that we do at Hema whether is a employee program where there's a product where is a new store we use supernormal as our North Star this is about our everyday normal life we wake up have breakfast lunch dinner go to sleep and start the next day the same again and again over and over we all feel fine by doing the same thing every day like waking up going to work have some coffee or feel around at home and have some coffee there thus this sound boring no it's normal and we love it it gives us rhythm and grip in life the nice thing is Hema also loves normal normal can be beautiful interesting exciting fun as long as we realize that big experiences find their footprint in small differences this is what Hema calls super normal so step out occasionally make the ordinary extraordinary and the average astounding say bye to boredom and hello to the remarkable celebrate everyday life and stir it up mix things up to amaze yourself stay curious does it ring a bell make some - when you take out the trash or while doing the dishes celebrate the things in life with loved ones or new friends a little crown on every day an invisible crown sometimes pollinate your life make with Hema what's normal super normal that's him that is we use for the team's internally as well so we've played this on and on so that everybody's in tune with super normal but I'll go back to the beginning I'll go back to the for everybody because it's something that's it's really true to our heart and you can imagine that being an optimistic brand that is for everybody that if people don't agree with that principle sometimes we get a bit in shock I must say and that's the story I would love to share with you today so again we hope the mistake we have for everybody and we came in 2015 and of the yen for the Dutch in the in the room you understand Santa Claus is a Christmas party and we had this little play whereby Santa Claus was a colored child and shorter Pete's was a wild child so there are characters and we were because the place is a children's party anyway I was completely shocked when our Facebook customer service line exploded where people were saying Hema you are out of your mind you're actually breaking traditions you were being racist no you're not being racist we don't believe in what you're doing what you're doing and we were like sorry we were really like flabbergasted we apologetic we were sorry we didn't mean we didn't mean to offend you I didn't mean to offend you we didn't mean to offend you we actually believed for everybody this was just a play we wrote mystic you know this is a power party let's celebrate together and the more we apologize the worst it would go and then Santa Claus past and Christmas past and say okay phew let's leave it behind us but then we got into a new season and I got into Easter and again we are an optimistic a brand we love making life simple more fun we're wishing everybody a happy spring with a little bunny boy with little eggs I felt like this is so sympathetic well some people didn't think like that we accused to be actually breaking Christian traditions that we will become Muslims that actually we stopped with the Dutch traditions and what we were doing and how bad we were doing our staff was also threatened our stores were graffitied and we had this kind of post in facebook boycott Hamer and we were again flabbergasted and we like but guys what is what is going on we are just optimistic you know just for everybody we love hastin we love spring and actually then we went into the whole marketing tactic technicality that this spring is longer than Eastern and that in the next campaign we will talk about this and the more we tried to apologize the worse it would go and it just was exploding everywhere and our corporate communication officer came to me and said and again everything that you do now I need to check an exigent maybe Ligon is to check this can't go on anymore we are being threatened and I said ain't gonna happen I can't share it with you even if I wanted the brand's not ours the brand is theirs yeah that is the world we live in but then in the moment it was quite emotional and we were very tense and we're very frustrated as well and in the middle of that whole confusion a phenomenon starts to emerge our fans start telling those guys a few thousand or you want to boycott Hamer go ahead we don't need you you know how much for everybody if you're not for everybody you don't belong get out of here and then we stood back and just saw that movements of our fans actually booing and backing off everybody that didn't belong to the core belief of the brand and that was magic for us because we felt like thanks God some people the standards thanks God some people actually share the same beliefs thanks God there are mostly offense and we have them and that gave us a lot of confidence that gave a lot of confidence and he said you know what we all to those people we need to tell the story we have been telling a story they're just not getting it we need to be a bit bolder and anyway we had an idea and we got really excited about the idea and even our corporate communication of so got very excited about the idea and we decided to do this campaign during pride pride 2016 and I'm Saddam and we use our icons the sausage and the tompa's these are icons at Hamer and we created three t-shirts sausage love sausage tompa's love stone booze and we also had a third one sausage love stone booze and they were sold out and they were sold out and our fans really loved it and you know we went into into the pride then it was a fantastic party I'll show you guys in the next video and Hema loves everybody but still not everybody loves everybody although Holland is famous for its open and tolerant culture the gay community still struggles for acceptance eighty seven o'clock I tell my de so chefs pass away if a hypocrite all for yesterday of the very black ops : they have a pedometer fast years and fail shelf mortar falling so Hema decided to make a statement by supporting this group during this year's Euro pride in Amsterdam how we use our two brand icons the smoked sausage and the custard slice and turned them into symbols for love sausage loves sausage pie loves pie we created a set of limited edition t-shirts which were launched in selected stores in Amsterdam with help from the gay community and influences the news spread fast in Akumal account ditch it is from the hey man our lost and hopeless as have all gained for the damage the t-shirts sold out within 36 hours people took great pride in wearing the t-shirts and shared their pride during Euro pride most popular hashtags were obviously Euro pride and gay but also smoked sausage and custard pie it's a like I don't know fence you need to compensate our sin I sell famous brand icons gave people a way to express themselves to celebrate love but that was not enough because we actually felt we told this story and a lot of people got it by the way we got no backlash there was nothing in social media saying are you guys going crazy which was amazing right but again what the worst that could happen we had fans that would supporters we knew it but then I said you know what we did we deliver in a joke way but what we want to say is that we love everybody and that the world needs that now we need to be inclusive we need to understand that difference is positive and actually want to tell it more literally than we did last time and we decided then again to use pride because the great moment to celebrate diversity and we launched another campaign and this campaign was not as hyped in the media as it was the other one because the other one of course was more catchy but actually for us was a big brave step to really tell what we believe in and I'll show you the next one isn't that story hey my house from et rain thunder for Adela did Bill attach the bright red as a safety measure normally you Jeremy yeah I'd rather nam look modesta t-shirts a fire fans for honey travelhob start I mean now publish act from a delay inside metal heart to the further weld Lifta is for either day do open a that this shirt so knowledge evade by V de nemours that's best formant my Lisa address under fleur-de-lis is numerous him a long icon [Music] and and for the knowledge the way it worked is you got a package and you didn't know the name that was inside so it was a t-shirt and you only choose your size you didn't know the color and you didn't know the name and the message behind these we are promoting unconditional love love everybody was that was the message and that was the message we wanted to tell from the very beginning and if you're very proud that we embrace that message that we are able to promote that message that again we got no backlash only supports when we did that message and all the funds from both t-shirts were reversed to the OCC or COCs re and the COC is an organization that actually supports youth to understand sexual preference and accept the differences and what I'm most proud about in this case is that when we hand the check we handed in our head office in Amsterdam and it was broadcast to all stores and we also telling our only employees and this is our CEO and if you work for Hema you believe in it if you're a custom of Hema you're part of this tribe that believes that happiness lies in the simple things in life and that everybody's worth it and we went home we're getting a bit bolder again is about no stereotyping is about not pigeonholing is about accepting the difference about giving the choice to be who you want to be and and actually we have been doing it for a while but got picked up in the media recently that we decided over the wire go to take the labels out of our kids clothes from boys and girls and just call it kids because you don't want to stereotype a girl to a pink and a boy to a blue but give them the choice and give the money the choice so actually wear whatever you want to wear it's not about the unisex or gender less is truly about embracing the differences and that's how I stole the now look like we call it kids not boys and girls because of that and our learnings in this journey is a first learning and is a big learning is that with great love comes great responsibility and we have many love brands I'm sure in the room and this is very true with great love the love that you receive from your fans becomes great responsibility so be careful when you sell a whole pack for the entire family because they do share it with you we didn't ask don't want to know but more seriously we decided at Hema because of that to create a Hema foundation and the goal of the Hema foundation roots will be launching next year is to promote this message that is for everybody that everybody's worth it and there are two big pillars the pill of promoting diversity and the pillar to promote sustainability for everybody and a big reason behind the launching the foundation which for is is a big step it's because we believe that I want to be there forever I won't be at Hema forever my colleagues won't be at Hema forever but these will live beyond us and it's our legacy of being a responsible brand the second big learn I think in this journey is that in the moment of a doubt remain true to what you believe in we can't please everybody if you try to please everybody you lose it and if you stay true to who you are your friends will be there to fight for you and that's what's our big learning don't try to please stay true to what you do and keep doing it and when you do it be conscious that there's a brand you have a big impact there only selling products and be conscious and I hope act on to make this world a better place thank you [Applause] [Music]