A brand promise is everything. All the standards and rules we hold ourselves to every time we make a decision. You could even call it a public code of ethics (that you can throw at us, whenever you don’t agree with something). This promise is also meant to be inspiring, to show you part of our a&b soul. Which is the sole purpose of this post; to break it down and explain what it means and what we actually do with it.
We don’t believe in perfection.
The first part of our a&b promise reads, ‘We don’t believe in perfection. We believe in better. Not perfect. Not pretending to be.’ This is the first part of our promise for a reason. We will play no part in amplifying false expectations from society and media through our brand. Falseness helps no-one, plus it's a tad cliched and not very interesting (something we stand against).
Imperfection is so much more fun and interesting. It’s also a lot more believable, which is why it matters so much to us. To say we have solved bathroom waste for good would be ridiculous. To say we have come up with a solution that is incalculably better, isn’t.
What we have is great, but that doesn’t mean it can’t get better.
We believe in better.
This takes us to the next part of our promise - we believe in better. Better is better than perfect. Better in credentials, design and product. Better in business, learning more about this market and the climate movement everyday, by living in it. This also allows us to become better people in the process; innovating our products, building in a pandemic and creating a team without being in the same room for any of it.
More honest and transparent
Not faking perfection and instead, being transparent enough to show our faults and what we still need to get better at. Something real, trackable and tangible.
I’d love to livestream the whole journey from manufacture to shelf. I’d love for you to be more involved in our brand and product decisions day-to-day. I’d love for us to be able to say that we have fixed the bathroom and all your favourite products are now sustainable and guilt-free. But we’re not there yet, no-one is!
This stuff takes time and isn’t inexpensive. And unfortunately not enough people care at the moment. After a pandemic and the economic environment thereafter, sustainable products aren’t at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
Not pretending.
And finally it's about being true to ourselves and not just our brand. If we say we’re going to do something, this means we can’t give up. When we said we wanted to present reality - we meant it. We launched with shots of people from all walks of life, no matter their age (something not necessarily popular with beauty brands).
We want to continue to walk the talk and make products with only the best and most sustainable ingredients and we will continue to do so until we can’t or until you say that’s not good enough.
All of this is just one part, in the coming weeks we’ll be breaking down more parts to our a&b promise.
I’ll leave you with the quote that inspired the first part of our promise:
‘One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist… without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.’
Stephen Hawking
Think about it.