Together with Mud Jeans
How could we persuade consumers to lease-a-jeans?
Mud Jeans is a denim company that brings circularity into practice. It explored, with guidance from Innoboost, how they could make their lease-a-jeans concept more attractive to customers by testing two stories in a small business experiment.
Helicopter perspective
Overloaded with daily challenges on how to build a circular business, Mud Jeans forgot to ask the obvious question: Why would leasing be a more appealing model for consumers instead of buying? From the Global Denim Project, which explores why people wear jeans, we collected insights that were used to look at Mud Jeans from a helicopter perspective. We reflected on questions like: Why do people generally use subscription or leasing models? What are our unique resources and capabilities? Why do customers wear jeans?
A set of fresh eyes
Innoboost was valued, for their guidance and for bringing a set of fresh eyes. Mud Jeans’ small and dedicated team was busy coping with operational challenges. It could benefit from dealing with the classic dilemma: solving urgent matters versus setting the direction for impactful change.
Two consumer insights and matching communication concepts were derived from a co-creation workshop. These were used in a straightforward A/B test on Facebook to see which story resonated better and would lead to higher sales of leased jeans.
Join the community
We learned that leasing is special because of the emotion that Mud Jeans offers—that of a lifestyle in which you can have plenty of fun, just not at the expense of future generations. What also makes leasing different is that you stay in touch with MUD Jeans and a kindred community. Laying the foundation for a new brand direction and follow-up communications and activities growing transparency and awareness. E.g., following the Production Tour, donating your jeans for the Recycling Tour, and most recently becoming a shareholder in the company. Shares already available for the price of two pair of jeans.
Small business experiments
Shifting from products to services to enable closed loops is frequently mentioned as a key strategy in the Circular Economy, but is often perceived as radical. Business experimentation is key to breaking this radical shift up into smaller steps. Experiments rather than large-scale pilots can help companies test new propositions at relatively low cost and effort. Ready to start yours?
