From rough concept to retail-ready Gen Z brand in six months.
NBI had a gap in their portfolio and a rough idea. Not a logo, not a tagline, not a single line of copy. Six months and under €20,000 later, Scandy was a real brand — built by one team, shipping to retail.
The challenge.
NBI's existing brands skewed older. The Gen Z and Gen Alpha beauty market was booming, but they didn't have a brand that spoke to that audience. They had a rough concept — a Nordic-inspired beauty brand for younger consumers — and nothing else.
Building a brand from scratch through traditional agencies typically means:
- Branding agency for visual identity: €15–40k
- Copywriting agency for brand voice and product copy: €10–25k
- Strategy consultancy for positioning and tone of voice: €10–20k
- Timeline: 9–18 months from concept to launch-ready
- Total: €35–85k before a single product photo
For a new brand with unproven demand, that's a significant bet.
What we did.
AI/CO worked with NBI to take Scandy from concept to launch-ready in 6 months — covering everything a traditional multi-agency approach would handle.
- Visual identity. The look, the feel, the aesthetic system that carries across packaging, digital, social and retail. Designed to resonate with Gen Z and Gen Alpha — not a "clean beauty" brand repositioned with pastel colours.
- Brand tone of voice. Direct, playful, authentic. Not trying too hard. Not corporate. The kind of voice that works on TikTok and on a product label.
- Product copy for Gen Z & Gen Alpha. Written specifically for a younger audience that values transparency, sustainability and efficacy — and has zero tolerance for anything that feels fake.
- Website copy. Full site: homepage, about, product pages, brand story. All aligned to the visual identity and voice.
- €35,000 – €85,000
- 9 – 18 months
- 3 – 4 agencies to coordinate
- Separate briefs for each
- Risk of inconsistency between agencies
- Under €20,000
- 6 months
- One partner, end to end
- One integrated brief
- One team, one voice, one vision
Why it worked.
Most brands are built by committee. A strategy firm defines positioning, hands it to a branding agency, who hands it to a copywriter, who hands it to a web designer. At every handoff, something gets lost. The voice drifts. The visuals and the copy start telling slightly different stories.
Scandy was built by one team. The people who created the visual identity also wrote the product copy and the website. No handoffs, no translation between agencies, no "that's not what we meant" moments.
For NBI, it also meant speed and reduced risk. At under €20k, the financial risk of launching a new brand dropped dramatically. If Scandy hadn't worked, the lesson would have cost a fraction of what it usually does.
But Scandy did work.
AI/CO helped us build Scandy from an idea into a real brand in six months. The speed was impressive, but what surprised us was the consistency. Everything — visuals, product copy, website — felt like one brand from day one.