How new “antibrand” Takk is tackling choice overload

20 Jul 2021 --- Officially launching in June 2020, Takk reveals it received its first subscriber exactly one year to the day of our interview.

Takk made the very conscious decision to enter the essentials personal care sphere for a very particular reason, Takk’s founder Pinar Akiskalioglu shares: “I had been working in this industry, and believe there is such a huge amount of unnecessary choice in this sector especially. Every day, we are offered ‘solutions’ to the beauty problems we are not even aware of yet.”

Contributing positively to achieve sustainability in the industry was also a key influencer that led to Takk’s arrival. “The burden of the personal care market on the environment goes beyond the packaging,” highlights Akiskalioglu. “The ecosystem that encourages over-consumption, global supply chains and the war for shelf space at the retailers is not only causing serious damage to our environment but also hindering true innovation efforts,” Akiskalioglu adds. 

The lightbulb moment

Click to EnlargeThe Takk range is a simpler approach to a saturated and over-complicated market. Source: Takk.Talking about the inspiration behind the conception and launch of Takk onto the personal care market, Akiskalioglu explains that it all started in 2015 after watching a Ted Talk, called Paradox of Choice. In it, the professor explained how having too many options for simple matters is ruining our lives. “I wasn’t aware that his point of view would change my career forever, but it did,” says Akiskalioglu.

At the time, Takk’s founder was in marketing, in a job that was based on offering new options to the market as a global industry leader. “I couldn’t get the ‘too many options’ idea out of my mind,” reveals Akiskalioglu. “Small things such as when you are asked to decide between spending a £5 voucher now or saving 10% off your next purchase at a cashier, or when you need to decide between eight different milk options for your coffee,” Akiskalioglu details.

Overcoming choice overload

“Despite the noise in my head, I kept my job — even advanced in my marketing career,” Akiskalioglu explains. However, the niggling feeling that led to Takk’s creation did not go away. “The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that choice overload was a global problem to be tackled.” 

Addressing and striving to overcome the detrimental impact of choice overload became a key ambition for the brand’s founder. “I am aware that we have more serious problems, like climate change and increasing income inequality, but imposing choice overload in many competitive industries is such a waste of human potential,” emphasizes Akiskalioglu.

Brand managers, agencies, and trendsetters are all working very hard to offer you more. “More ‘solutions’, more ‘options’— but, do we really need more?”, questions Akiskalioglu. Entering the personal care industry, Takk’s focus was on necessity, nature and what is truly essential by consciously removing choice overload. 

“Shampoo is just shampoo; we do not need thousands of options, after all!” says Akiskalioglu. “And I am not even talking about the billions spent every year by the global giants introducing new options that we have to spend our time and energy choosing among for no practical benefit.” 

After tackling the choice-overload problem, Akiskalioglu quit her job and went to Oxford University to study business, meet beautiful minds for business, and get ready to hit the ground running. “My idea sounded too simple, I worried,” Franklin conveys. “But I was positively surprised with the community I managed to gather around this idea,” Akiskalioglu notes.

What do people want from their personal care choices?

Click to EnlargeToo much consumer choice creates anxiety and confusion. With the aim of helping people select their personal care products by removing a variety of options and focusing on providing the essentials, it is unsurprising that Takk adopts this same simplicity to its product creation. 

In response to the question, 'What are personal care consumers expecting from essential personal care products today?’, Akiskalioglu openly replies: “I’m not sure they know anymore!”

Outlining what Takk believes is an overly-complex sector, Akiskalioglu says: “If you are just looking for a really great face cream it is impossible to just find something without having to work out your skin type and compare it to tens of other similar products, sometimes even from the same brand.”

Takk responds by taking the choice away and providing one of each of its products, which are developed with experts to ensure the results stand up and work for most people. 

The business adopts a conscious perspective to running its personal care entrant. Along with passionately creating products that it notes are vegan, cruelty free and genderless, it describes itself as having a “truly diverse team with a transparent compensation structure, is a living wage employer, and is supporting the vulnerable when deciding production sites and when donating products.”

Standing out 

For Takk, standing out in the marketplace is all about how it talks about its uniqueness and values. “We like talking about what we stand for instead of shrewdly created brand stories,” says Akiskalioglu. 

“Takk is an antibrand,” expresses Akiskalioglu, highlighting: “We sell only essential products without any type of promotion to push more sales, source the vast majority of the product components within the UK, and use only essential ingredients.”

The brand values direct communication. Takk is conscious about actively sharing extensively detailed information about packaging types, ingredients and packing sourcing on its website and pledges to focus all innovation efforts to eco-solutions rather than launching the latest trendy product each year.

So how does an antibrand manage its launch strategy?

First, the brand has hit the road to find like-minded people, it explains: “We are not here to educate consumers; we are here to find our people who are already fed up with promotion and marketing noise overload and want to have peace of mind.” 

When it comes to its marketing, the brand likes telling people authentic stories instead of made up brand stories. “We are for people who look for genuinely transparent companies,” says Akiskalioglu. And this authenticity extends to companies’ environmental footprint, fair pay and treatment of all their stakeholders. As a result, Takk wants to: “Spread our word as organically as possible without being part of the noise, it stands against.” 

What’s next? 

As Takk celebrates its first birthday milestone, we look to what the antibrand aims to achieve before its second. 

“We are hoping to keep all our existing subscribers happy and grow our community around the Essentials-Only philosophy significantly, without going into easy paths of cheap promotional tricks,” Akiskalioglu asserts.

So, what is the future of personal care? “I believe simplicity is the future in the personal care market,” predicts Akiskalioglu. “People are looking for peace of mind when shopping and want to ensure ethical practices over fluffy beauty benefits,” Akiskalioglu urges.

By Natasha Spencer-Jolliffe, BPC Insights Senior Editor