The Amplitude Media Catapult sessions are designed to offer a helping hand to small, local businesses within Northamptonshire. We see them as a way of helping our community bounce back from the chaos caused by Covid-19. Each session is free of charge, with no obligation to continue working with us afterwards, so it’s not surprising that we had businesses jump at the chance to get involved.

We recently completed the first session – with Karen Timson Fine Fragrance – and are booked up for the next few months, but you can still apply! We consider every application carefully and are booking sessions throughout 2021.

Keep reading and watch the video below to learn about our first Catapultee.

Introduction to Karen Timson

Karen Timson is the owner of perfume brand “Karen Timson Fine Fragrance”. She makes gorgeous artisan scents made from luxury raw materials, and even runs a bespoke fragrance service for weddings, individuals, and events.

We set up a video call between Karen, our Managing Director, and in-house marketing specialist to discuss her needs in detail.

She’d applied to Catapult asking for help with identification and targeting of her audience, as well as a review of her website and marketing plan. We also looked into her brand identity and photography.

Karen’s branding was as luxurious as her fragrance, with an elegant logo and great packaging. But she needed a gentle helping hand with her website and social media accounts to catapult (sorry, we had to get that in somewhere) her brand to the next level.

Research & Development

Before we embarked on any content creation for Karen, we needed to deep dive into research. Research is the most valuable tool a creative team can have, as it not only ensures our created assets will fit the brand, aesthetic and industry, but also helps tailor them to a brand’s audience.

The first thing we needed to do was to get our hands on some samples. We needed to get a real sense of the product, and of the experience a customer would have upon receiving an order. We can confirm that Karen’s products look and smell phenomenal! 

Next, we set about establishing Karen’s target audience through customer profiling. This informed every piece of content going forward.

Getting Creative

With the audience established and Karen’s goals in mind, we could get stuck into creating! One area we felt we could put our creative skills to good use was in updating her website product photography. After seeing the products in person, we felt the photography didn’t show them in their best light or demonstrate the brand’s high quality. 

Emma and Chris – our creative team – researched the market to see what brands dominating the perfume industry tended to do, then collected a series of styles and themes they thought would compliment Karen’s products, brand, and ambitions. After presenting these to the rest of the Amplitude Media team, Emma refined the options into a single fresh, clean and natural house style. This style – unique to Karen – placed particular emphasis on the natural ingredients she uses.

While the rest of the Amp team were busy analysing, auditing and strategising in order to give Karen a comprehensive breakdown of her business, Emma took the products into the studio.

In The Studio

With the house-style ready and the audience in mind, a shot list was assembled and Emma got to work.

She built a set specifically for this shoot with the help of our apprentice, Amelia, who lovingly painted wooden plinths and helped source props, including fresh flowers and marble tiles. Amelia also used this shoot as an opportunity to shadow Emma and gain further photography experience.

Using her experience of high end brand product photography and eye for detail, Emma – with Amelia’s helping hand, enthusiasm and fresh ideas – created scenes using props specific to each product range. Props were selected to provide a visual representation of the stories, scents and even the feeling the fragrances invoke.

Emma then retouched all imagery using a workflow and style that had been designed with Karen’s images in mind. In the end, we created three website hero images (for two of Karen’s biggest sellers and one new upcoming range) and consistent product photography for every item in her shop.

Final Outcome

Whilst all Catapult sessions by nature will be completely different, all businesses involved will get a comprehensive report detailing our findings. We set up a Zoom call with Karen and talked her through everything we pulled together, including:

• Audience/customer profiles
• A social media & photography best practice guide
• An audit of her website
• Language guide
• Advice on targeting distributors & retailers
• Advice on measuring success

Furthermore, Karen also received her new collection of website ready shots along with a library of licensed stock photographs she could use to compliment her new house-style across her social media.

We think it’s safe to say that Karen was pretty happy with the results…

“I’m absolutely blown away by all your effort, commitment and consideration and can’t thank you guys enough.”

We were very proud of the work we produced for Karen Timson Fine Fragrance, but it was Karen’s reaction that reminded us of why we decided to run the Catapult sessions in the first place. 

Do you want to be the next Catapultee? Head over to the Catapult Sessions Announcement Post to find out more about the initiative and to apply.