2021 was the formal 10th anniversary of I Heart Studios. Although the inception of the business was in 2011, the actual conceptual idea was defined in the years before that.
The basic principle of high-quality content for an affordable price, executed by specialists and underpinned by a deep understanding of the needs of the fashion and lifestyle industry was the starting point of I Heart Studios.
10 years later, we strongly believe that this ethos is as valid as in 2011!
Of course, our business has evolved and adjusted to market dynamics and client requirement developments during the last 10 years:
- The speed of content consumption has increased tremendously
- The importance and adoption of e-commerce has drastically changed across the globe
- What shall we say about social media and social selling? It was in its infancy stage back in 2011 and is now one of the biggest communication and selling channels
- Consumer journeys and the role of visual content has changed
- New content types have been developed and are on the verge of being adopted at scale, e.g., Metaverse, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality and hologram technologies.
What has changed within I Heart Studios over the last 10 years?
- In 2011, we started in London with a single studio for the greater London area and expanded to Amsterdam in 2016, then to Hong Kong in 2018. This allows us to provide services to a global client base and cater for local, regional, or global solutions
- We have widened our customer channels beyond fashion and lifestyle, and we now serve a wide variety of customers in personal care, beauty, beverage, technology, and home sectors, while still championing fashion and lifestyle.
- Our service portfolio has evolved to a holistic solution-oriented content provider. We deliver everything from e-commerce, social media to brand content, with a client-centric approach.
- During this period, we have partnered with a great cause looking after children on waste dumps in various parts of the world. The Small Steps Project is a project we have supported with pride for more than 6 years. We see this as part of our social responsibility, which is essential to our community and business.
What has not changed in these 10 years?
- Our talent! Our people and teams across the globe deliver the I Heart Studios spirit every single day.
- Quality! We stay true to our belief that high quality is non-negotiable and know that quality content sells!
- Client focus! This has evolved over the years, but we value our customers and the trust they put in our business.
- The role of content! Ever since the inception, we have understood the role of content, and it never stops growing in importance for our clients.
- Usage of content! We continue to stimulate integrated thinking across the content needs and promote maximum usage of content across many platforms and needs.
- Delivering services that matter to our clients! We always have seen ourselves as service providers and continue to do so every day. Content is the end-product of these services, ranging from photography, videography, graphic design, post-production or other content enrichment treatments.
What are the next 10 years going to bring?
- We are pretty sure that the need for content will continue to grow.
- There will be continued development of new content types to engage/interact with the consumer. We believe that some of these will be adopted at scale, pending technological evolution.
- The consumer might reach a saturation point in content consumption and feel the need to go back to less, but more connected, better quality, authentic, elevated, and inspiring content.
- Continued integration of conceptual thinkers and executors/producers of content, delivering a full end-to-end solution to clients.
- At I Heart Studios will continue to:
- Look where there is a need for our services and partner or open a branch, when applicable. Our current focus is on Shanghai as the next step for our Asian network.
- Focus on talent development and generating opportunities for new talent within our business and global footprint.
- Support and develop CSR initiatives, not only donating our content creation skills, but also contributing in other ways to the communities around us.
10 years is a milestone. We summarise these years by: great talent, great clients, projects small and big, challenges and opportunities, pandemic, mistakes and solutions, learnings, adaptability, character building, creativity, but most of all, as exciting, exhilarating, fun and incredibly rewarding.
Thank you to all our talent, past and present, you have been and still are the cornerstone of I Heart Studios. Every day, it prides me to see what we achieve as a collective, and what we deliver in beautiful content day-in-day-out!
Thank you to all our clients, past and present! We value your business and will never take this for granted. We will continue to work with you hand in hand to develop solutions, create content, and drive success for your business; this is our win-win mindset.
Finally, thank you to our partners. Your support and services are an integral part of our business and success. Let’s continue this and raise our game for the next 10 years!
