How to turn parameters into benefits

Client

Preciosa

Our paths crossed with Preciosa and its Crystal Components division, which manufactures machine-cut crystal stones, in 2009. At that time, cheap competition from Asia was pressing down on them, and Preciosa began to realize that for success it must not only produce goods with high quality but also present them attractively to customers.

What we did

Communication strategy, visual style, and sales and advertising materials from 2009 to 2016

Few products call so clearly for showing beauty

The first step was a new visual style. Preciosa's original sales materials did not correspond to the position of a major global manufacturer, ahead of which stands only the global firm Swarovski. Nowhere did the beauty of cut stones shine. Yet few things are as visually attractive as crystal.

The new style was created in 2009-10 on the product catalog, acquisition kits for sales representatives, and advertisements. And over the following six years, it developed on many other corporate materials.

Persuasive argumentation for an innovative product

In 2013, Preciosa launched the new Maxima line in response to an EU regulation banning the use of lead in crystal. However, lead is precisely the magic ingredient that gives crystal its rainbow brilliance. Each manufacturer thus had to invent their own (naturally secret) process to guarantee the same result without lead, and only Swarovski and Preciosa succeeded.

For Preciosa, however, this necessarily meant converting its previous "production" speak into persuasive arguments and easily understandable benefits. Because it is precisely benefits that answer the fundamental question – why should the customer care?

At the beginning, there was a pile of facts. For example, "lead content is lower than 0.009%," "2x higher refractive index," or "no cheap Asian manufacturing, we make it all here in Bohemia." In this pile, we made a logical order and divided the individual facts into 5 smaller piles with specific characteristics (composition of glass, cutting, tradition, patentated quality, and ecology).

For each of the 5 categories, we defined what customers should know about Maxima and what benefit or utility it means for them. And we then transformed this into a simple, understandable headline and an accompanying short text.

How to say it in three words?

Once we knew the benefits, it was still necessary to extract the most important part from them – the fundamental essence – and create an explanatory tagline out of it. That essence consisted of the words "brilliant" and "lead-free," which we tried inserting into the tagline in various ways:

... and out into the world with it!

A thoroughly prepared argument is then relatively easy to prepare for any output channel (advertisement, microsite, printed sales presentation).

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What we learned

Jitka Slavíčková

Designer & copywriter

When you want a client's trust, understand their product

We were initially brought in as designers who were "only" supposed to improve the visual style. But because good design stands on good content, we naturally took an interest in how Preciosa functions, how it thinks, and what makes it exceptional. We got to know its wide product portfolio in detail. And the more we understood it, the more we enjoyed it and the better work we were able to deliver.