Innocent Drinks’ fun, straightforward, non-corporate and honest brand is not just skin deep.
The company has developed an internal creative culture which it has managed to sustain despite an extended period of development, both in the UK and Europe. Skilful recruitment and effective communication lie at the heart of the company’s cultural development, ensuring creative involvement from every department and a company-wide commitment to success.
Creativity has always been an integral part of Innocent. In the early days, brand development in all its forms was handled by the founders and the then newly appointed brand manager, Dan Germain, with a little help from family and friends. Although Innocent can now afford to outsource some of its creative functions (and sometimes does) a powerful culture of creativity still exists and is actively encouraged among the company’s 120 employees.
‘We invest lots of time finding smart people to come and work at Innocent,’ explains Germain. ‘Smart people are creative, driven, funny, friendly and focused. Without great people, Innocent wouldn’t be here today.’ Germain is keen to point out that creativity within the workplace is not just a feature of traditionally creative disciplines such as design and communication. ‘It’s just as pronounced in the way that we come up with new ideas for drinks, or in our operations and logistics teams – they’re the ones who have to solve incredibly complex problems at only a moments notice.’
Actively encouraging communication and creativity is a core part of company life at Innocent, as Germain explains: ‘If people aren’t involved in all decisions, big and small, then they start to feel unloved and removed from the business and its success. So we get together as a company as much as possible, so that people can share their thoughts and ideas.’
Innocent arranges big quarterly meetings, monthly forums for debates on hot topics and a weekly catch up involving the whole company. ‘These all help to democratise the ideas generation process,’ says Germain.
Asked to put a value on Innocents creative culture, Germain is unequivocal is his response: ‘Without great ideas that help us to improve the business, we wouldn’t exist as a company. So I’d say that creative culture is worth about £65 million to us. That’s our projected annual turnover for 2006.’
Issues that affect the Innocent marketplace
- Kids nutrition
- 5 a day recommendation
- Campaign to remove VAT on healthy fruit drinks
- Fairtrade versus Rainforest Alliance
- Environmental sustainability