SUZANNE CLEMENTS, ABSOLUTELY NATURAL CLEAN UP AT 2013 ADDY AWARDS

Monday, February 25, 2013


For those of you who are regular readings of my blogs, you have heard Suzanne Clements mentioned many, many time.  For those of you not familiar with her work, Suzanne is the incredibly talented owner of Suzanne Clements Graphic Design, LLC .

To Absolutely Natural, she is a member of our family and has touched pretty much every project we have done for the last five or six years.  Trained as a fine artist, Suzanne is also adept at copy writing, collateral design, photography, web site and e-commerce marketing and much more.  She has revamped our entire look from stationery to web design to packaging including all of our brochures, labels, catalogues, posters and more.

Last night I felt like I was with a celebrity as Suzanne and I attended the ADDY Awards at the Rialto Hilton in Melbourne, Florida.   The ADDY Awards are the advertising industry’s competition designed to “acknowledge creative excellence in all media of local, regional and national advertising.”   Suzanne got a lot of acknowledgement as she won seven of the awards including five for projects she did for our companies. 

In fact, the first four awards of the evenings went to Suzanne which had the crowd buzzing and me all smiles!  It is gratifying to see her recognized for her work and even more so when you consider her competition were ad agencies with very large staffs. 

Her Gold ADDYs were awarded for the Salt Life Skincare campaign (Salt Life is our licensee program) and two for digitally enhanced photos she took for another client and her own studios.
Suzanne won Silver ADDYs for Absolutely Natural Marketing Materials (our wholesale one sheets), Salt Life Skincare Sales Kits, our Absolutely Natural Travel Size Pillow box, our Maui Island Secret Web Site (which she totally revamped last year), and our Absolutely Natural Ingredient Deck (added to our web site).

Working with Suzanne was Curtis Canham on some of the print materials and Mark Kuhn on the web based projects.

Congratulations, Suzanne.  We are proud of you and look forward to more great things in the years to come.

Best regards,
Charley

And the award goes to...

Wednesday, February 20, 2013



Wow, you can't turn the television on these days without seeing an awards show.  The Grammys.  The Oscars.  The CMT Awards.  MTV Video Music Awards.  People's Choice.  Golden Globes.

I thought Absolutely Natural should get in on this so we are creating our own awards show and we're calling it the ABNATs.  

OK, the envelope please.  The winner in best New Product Launch, Absolutely Natural's new sunscreen formulas.  Yes, the results are in from the beaches of Waikiki and our new line is blowing off the shelves. 

Here's the feedback we are getting from customers and long time sales personnel of UV Rays, Oahu's preeminent beach service.  People love the new packaging in our stylistic, orange tubes and they really appreciate the bigger sizes.  And, in our first major reformulation in 20 years, we are hearing positive comments on the new SPF 4, 8, 15 and 30.  The base has additional anti-oxidants, free radical scavengers and anti-aging ingredients (see our earlier blogs detailing the changes). The addition of Zinc to the Titanium for sunscreens means the product is less white going on the skin.

The new formulas are being sold on line, in Waikiki and will be at all the hotels on Maui within a month or so.

Our “Customer’s Choice Award” goes to our new Tanning Travel Pack. You've asked for it and we listened. We've added a new Travel Pack that includes our famous Rosehip Aloe, Pure Aloe, SPF 8 and our Platinum Tanning Oil. Yes, I said our Platinum Tanning Oil! This kit comes in a convenient clear vinyl pack that is air travel safe and it’s the perfect combination to keep that long lasting tan during and after your vacation. Bring your tan with you where ever you go!

Next ABNAT for Outstanding Tweak to Awesome Products is a tie!  The world famous and best seller Rosehip Aloe and our Pure Aloe with Tea Tree both share the award.  The Rosehip has an improved base oil that has been upgraded from Walnut to Fractionated Coconut plus the addition of the age defying wonder ingredient, Green Tea Extract.  The result is a closer affinity to the natural oils of your skin plus the phytophenols that can help improve skin that is already damaged by the sun, environmental pollutants, other environmental elements and aging.

The Pure Aloe has Green Tea Extract added to the amazing formula to give it more healing power for burns, rashes, irritations and skin disorders.

Not surprisingly, Absolutely Natural did well in these awards:

ABNAT for Best , New, Improved Tanning Oil: Platinum Oil

ABNAT for Excellent Customer Service: Absolutely Natural's crack team in sales including Brittany Quave, Michele Mackie, Danny Richards and Todd Anderson and newbie Reed Maidhof.

ABNAT for Incredible Marketing and Web Site and Facebook and Pinterest Stuff: Lindsey Barber, Suzanne Clements and Curtis Canham.

ABNAT for Awesomeness in Making Products: Our production crew, Calvin, Danny, Bradley and manager, Gordon.  Our labeling department headed up by Anita Shaw, our Blend Master, Eddie with capable assistance from Pedro and Franco, our lab, Kristina, our inventory control, Matt and our bookkeeper, Joan.

Well, tongue firmly planted in cheek, that's all for the awards but I am extremely proud of the way the new line is taking off.

We are a couple months short of our 21st birthday and 2013 will be an exciting year!

Thanks and best regards
Charley