Chapter 2
Lotta Jansen couldn’t quite believe that she was on her way to a meeting that might change the course of her life.
It sounded dramatic, and she tried not to let herself think it was a moment as monumental as that, but it finally felt as if the years of hard work would pay off. All she had to do now was nail it.
She didn’t want to risk being delayed on the train because she didn’t want to lose the upper hand by being late, so she headed into central London ridiculously early.
Typically, the trains ran perfectly, so she had some time on her hands.
It was a beautiful morning, so she walked from Liverpool Street station to the Snug offices in Shoreditch.
She popped into a coffee shop on her way and grabbed an oat milk latte to sip as she strolled.
Her nerves abated, and the churning in her stomach settled.
Thank goodness she hadn’t been in a rush.
At least now she would arrive relatively relaxed and unflustered.
But as soon as she saw the Snug sign, the butterflies were back.
She stood outside the building while all the negative thoughts she’d so far repressed bubbled to the surface.
Why would they want her? What made her think she was qualified enough to tell them how to market their business when it was one of the most successful brands in Europe?
There was nothing she could do for them. Nothing.
‘Hello. You’re not Lotta, are you?’ The woman had a friendly face, and Lotta recognised her from the initial online call they’d had.
‘Clemmie?’
‘Good to meet you in person.’
‘You too. I was just finishing my coffee,’ said Lotta, feeling the need to explain why she was loitering outside.
‘Bring it in with you.’
She followed Clemmie into the building and up the stairs to the first floor.
There was a reception desk at the top, ready to field visitors, but the first impression it gave was nothing like any other office Lotta had been to.
The lighting was low, giving the place an intimate feel, much like the vibe of their high street shops.
The reception desk itself had a bistro lamp on each corner and trailing plants flowing down the sides, and huge potted plants acted as a screen between this area and the rest of the offices.
Instead of a row of characterless chairs to wait on, there was an eclectic mix of comfortable chairs upholstered in rich jewel-coloured velvet.
Lotta gulped, the feeling that she was out of her depth not having left yet.
‘I’ll leave you with Harry,’ said Clemmie. ‘He’ll get you set up in the meeting room, and we’ll see you in a few minutes.’
‘Shall I take that for you?’ Harry was a smart man in his early twenties, Lotta guessed. He held his hand out for her empty coffee cup.
‘Thank you.’
‘Follow me.’ He binned the coffee cup, then headed through the foliage in a different direction to the one Clemmie had taken, and they emerged next to a glass-walled meeting room.
Open shelving surrounded the outside of the room, carefully curated with colour-coordinated stock.
Everything from pillar candles to cushions, mugs to folded blankets.
It was almost as if the room was nestled in the middle of a Snug store.
‘You can plug in here,’ Harry said, holding out a cable to her. ‘Will you need any help with that?’ He said it with a barely audible sigh as if he expected she would, since she was at least ten years older than him.
‘I’ll be fine, thank you.’
‘Tea or coffee?’
‘Tea would be great. Milk, no sugar.’
He swept out of the room, and Lotta pulled her laptop from her bag and tried connecting so that if she needed help, she could ask when he came back with her tea.
She’d done enough of these presentations in various offices to have come across most set ups and she connected with no issue.
Her first slide came up with her headshot and branding: Lotta Jansen Marketing.
She’d spent ages brainstorming names for her business, but in the end her own name had served her well.
It spoke to her Nordic heritage, which had led to opportunities, much like this one, where companies assumed a Nordic connection.
There was a Nordic connection, of course there was with a surname like Jansen, but once Lotta’s grandfather moved to England and married an English woman, every generation in the family became further disconnected from their roots.
No sooner had Harry delivered her cup of tea in the nicest mug she’d ever seen, with a raised eyebrow showing his surprise at her technical prowess, Clemmie and the others were arriving.
There were four of them, sat two either side of the table, while Lotta stood at the head of the table ready to present.
‘Take a seat, Lotta,’ Clemmie said. ‘Let’s do some introductions first.’
She perched on her chair and listened to them all say their names and job titles, none of which stayed in her head.
‘And I’m Lotta Jansen. I run an independent marketing agency specialising in social media and influencer marketing.
’ She stood up, taking the cue to start by the way they were all sitting back, looking at her expectantly.
‘Thank you for inviting me. I’m going to talk through my ideas for the brief I discussed with Clemmie. ’
Clemmie gave an encouraging nod, so Lotta began.
‘Snug is a thriving, relevant company with deep-rooted values around sourcing items from local artists and craftspeople. That is your unique selling point and the reason behind Snug’s continued growth and success.
The question now is how do established stores keep the momentum going?
London is the flagship store for your brand and is, as you know, the best performing in terms of turnover, with Reykjavik coming in second.
But Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki, the first stores in the European rollout, are flagging.
Your current marketing campaigns are aimed at driving new customers to these stores, and that’s working, but we are going to remind people why they fell in love with Snug in the first place. ’
Everyone was paying attention, which was good. It told Lotta that her opening spiel was on the right track and that they wanted to hear what she had to say.
She clicked onto her first proper slide, a photo of Snug Oslo, and explained by using that store as an example, what her plan of action would be.
She wanted to set up collaborations, leaning into the fact that a lot of the stock in each store was sourced locally.
The example she was suggesting today was inspired by the Norsk Folk Museum, just outside Oslo, which she’d visited about ten years ago on a family holiday.
What she’d thought would be a boring day had turned out to be one of her favourite days of the holiday.
She’d taken so many photos that it was easy to find some to use today.
One of her favourites was of a heavy old wooden farmhouse door that had a decorative heart cut out.
It wasn’t symmetrical or neat, but that gave it whimsy.
That someone was building a farmhouse decades and decades ago, probably in harsh conditions with few tools, and yet they had taken the trouble to carve a heart into their front door.
That heart told her that the person who did it had loved someone.
She hoped to illustrate that love is poured into these wonderful things that craftspeople make, giving them more meaning than something you could buy that has been mass-produced.
Meaningful collaboration based on something linked to the heritage of the country each store was based in was her plan.
‘I would suggest a small run of high-end, high-priced items which we would anticipate will sell out straight away, followed by a limited run of more affordable items that have a link to the initial collection. Once the maker is decided on for each store, we can start to build excitement around a launch event. We would use appropriate influencers to announce the collabs, rather than any traditional advertising. For example, we could ask someone to visit the Folk Museum and post a video of them discovering the heart door, then cut to the craft in progress. We’re looking to connect people to the maker and the heritage all at once. ’
‘I love it,’ Clemmie said, her eyes shining. ‘It’s such a simple idea that can easily be replicated in every country.’
‘Are we in danger of alienating our core customers by going down the TikTok route?’ said a man who was wearing a shirt with too many buttons undone. Lotta thought his name was Paul, but it could have been anything. It felt like a long time since the introductions she hadn’t been listening to.
Lotta flicked her eyes to Clemmie to check that she wasn’t about to address the question, but she looked as if she were waiting for Lotta to answer.
‘It doesn’t have to be TikTok. We will use whatever platform fits the demographic we’re trying to reach.
Your core customers are in their thirties and forties, far enough into their careers that they have disposable income, and they’re city-dwellers trying to make a bare-walled rental their own.
’ Everyone except Paul nodded. ‘I would suggest starting with Instagram and Facebook, but with this kind of campaign, it’s easy for us to pivot if something’s not working as we’d expected. ’
‘Agreed. And this can run happily alongside what we’re already doing,’ said Clemmie. She was Head of Branding and Marketing, so what she thought was all Lotta was interested in. This statement alone made Lotta feel like she might have a chance of winning the business.
‘Who’s going to come up with the ideas?’ Positive Paul asked.
‘I don’t think we want to be too prescriptive, right Lotta?’ Clemmie said. ‘Perhaps we choose the place, like this Folk Museum, and then ask the store managers to invite their makers to pitch ideas.’
‘We could put it out to influencers to help choose a collaboration target that fits with their audience. We’d probably get more traction then,’ said Lotta.
‘Sounds great!’ Clemmie said. ‘Would you mind stepping out for a few minutes so we can have a quick discussion?’
‘Not at all. Thank you.’ Lotta smiled and made eye contact with everyone around the table as she spoke, before picking up her lukewarm cup of tea and heading out to reception.
‘It’s a good sign if they’ve asked you to wait,’ Harry said, seeming to have warmed up a bit. Perhaps he wasn’t a morning person.
‘Thanks.’ It might be a good sign, but she wasn’t counting her chickens yet. She’d done plenty of pitches in her time but none as important as this. She couldn’t let herself believe it might actually be happening.
The phone rang, and Harry picked it up. ‘You can go back in,’ he said, making Lotta feel as if she was on an episode of The Apprentice.
She left her tea behind, smoothed down her skirt, and headed back into the meeting room.
‘Lotta, we’d very much like to offer you the contract for this campaign,’ Clemmie said, standing and offering her hand.
She had to stop herself from exclaiming, Really? or Wow! Instead, she simply said, ‘Thank you,’ and shook Clemmie’s hand.
‘Congratulations. We’ll send the contract across straight away so you can get your people on it because we’d like to start straight away.’
‘No problem. I can shift some things around and start next week.’
‘Ah, we were hoping you might meet Elin, the store manager of Snug Oslo, the day after tomorrow. We’re keen to get this rolling using Norway as the blueprint, like you suggested.
It makes sense for it to come from you since you’ve done so much work on the vision.
You’re best placed to pin down all the detail for this first, and it should feed the strategy for the rest of the stores. ’
Lotta had absolutely nothing else to do in the next few days other than make a few posts to go out on social media for various clients.
Nothing that couldn’t wait, and nothing that would be anywhere near as exciting as this project.
‘That’s fine, Clemmie. I’m happy to travel to Oslo and get it off the ground. ’
‘Brilliant!’ She stopped talking while the others filed out, then closed the door. ‘Take a seat.’
The bubbly atmosphere had disappeared, and Lotta felt as if she was about to be told it was all a joke.
‘I’m thrilled that you started with Oslo and, if I’m honest, that was why you got the contract. Oslo is a huge concern for us. This is highly confidential, by the way.’
Lotta nodded, hoping she conveyed a serious enough expression. ‘Of course.’
‘This campaign needs to change the fortunes of the Oslo store. We haven’t been able to identify any particular reason why the store is failing.
If you can get this to work for them, it’ll be a breeze doing the others.
And you’ve done most of the work already.
Go to Oslo, meet with Elin, but remember that you’re driving this campaign, however collaborative we want it to look. The success of it is in your hands.’
Lotta walked away from the Snug offices with very mixed feelings.
She should be thrilled to have won the biggest contract of her career, something she could really shout about and that would inevitably lead to new and bigger clients.
But she already felt as if there was a cloud hanging over it.
As if there were an ulterior motive to the whole thing that could blow up in her face.