The Innovation Tchibo Pitchfest 2015 held in Sydney earlier this year was undoubtedly one of the most exciting, yet scariest product showcase events in Baby Made’s history to date.
It was really exciting to be pitching our Award-Winning ‘Baby Inkless Print Kit’ product to a judging panel of international and national marketing specialists in order for them to select the Top 3 best creative innovation products on the Australian market today; and so scary for all the same reasons!
Drum roll …. and the judges include Christoph Honnefelder, Director of Products at Tchibo; Bastian Grafe, Tchibo Director of Creative Sourcing & Co-operation; Sally de Swart, Group Director Retail at Reed Exhibitions; Australian design expert Tara Dennis and Nancy Georges of Magnolia Solutions and Miss Fix-it fame. Yep, some major big guns!
What began with sixteen finalists, who had all exhibited at the 2015 Sydney Reed Gift Fair, resulted in an initial round-robin style of five minute pitches where judges delved into the background of each company, the concept, and marketing prospective for each nominated product.
At the conclusion of the initial round, the sixteen finalists were reduced by half to a Top 8, and we made it! Now keep in mind, we had no idea what to do or what was expected from the get-go. We didn’t know what the judges were looking for, and to be quite honest, how to impress or to effectively convey what we knew was a best selling baby keepsake product in the Australian market to an international buyer on the scale of Tchibo. We might be a market leader, but a leading public speaker… perhaps not.
Another round of pitching underway and we make it into the Top 3 winners – so proud, so excited (so relieved) and just so absolutely exhilarated, that those in the know saw we see about our Baby Inkless Print Kit – the ultimate in simple to use, permanent, inkless free, paint and easiest way to record baby’s hand and footprint keepsake mementos forever.
We are truly grateful to Tchibo, Reed Exhibitions, Tara Dennis & Nancy Georges in particular for allowing us their time and the opportunity to share our Baby Inkless Print Kit as well as our passion for striving to continually stay at the forefront of the Australian and worldwide keepsake market. We can’t wait to launch our latest elaboration of our everlasting keepsake product line. Stay tuned, the range at Baby Made will continue to grow and just keep getting better!
