Life's A Pitch - Manifesto pt II.

Today we discussed our manifesto, our current draft is 

"Matchbox" is a company of creatives based in leeds, dedicated to making high quality candles with a sustainable positive impact whilst inspiring individuals to think outside the (match) box. We believe that knowing you is essential to that process, customising our products to meet your personals wants/needs and making you feel part of the Matchbox family. 

We looked at the Snask manifesto and the architect Frank Lloyd Wright's manifesto afterwards to see how wording can bring across a tone and attract a certain clientele to your work. Responses to our manifesto were mostly that we were friendly and approachable which is what we were hoping for. 

We made a list in the session of things that we need to start thinking about, possibly for next session. 

• Yankee candle/competitor prices 
• What can you paint candles with? Can you paint candles? 
• Amazons best sellers candles, what are they and how can we differ from that?
• What burns the slowest - beeswax, paraffin, soya or gel 
• Out of those, which are the most environmentally friendly, which are easiest to customise?
• Vessels candles are carried in, how our packaging can be environmentally friendly too
• How can we get ourselves out there? Look into different kinds of social media
• What is the best forum to be on? If we are on etsy will we get lost, will we loose some potential earnings from having to be on a site like etsy or Big Cartel? 
• What websites are the easiest to build upon? 
• Can we create moulds within the college? 
• If Not where else can we make them? 
• Can we emboss the candles? 

From these questions we started to think about the brand itself. We liked the idea of beeswax candles and contributing back to the care of bee's. 

We decided to create three main streams to focus on, nicknamed the three B's: 

 "basics" range, creating illustrated candles that are a basic shape with customised smell. 

  "save the bees" range, where we focus on being environmentally friendly and giving back. 

"black magic" range where we can experiment with moulds and colours around a theme. 

We also spoke about the website and the inclusion of the "meet your maker" section where we can each introduce what we do for the company and how we make the candles. 

We also wanted to include a "outside the matchbox" section where we could show how we contribute to other communities (such as the bee's).