My trip to the Solomon Islands this April was filled with firsts. First time travelling to the Pacific. First time drinking a fresh coconut, a fact the onlookers in the village found unbelievable and hilarious. First time sporting a permanent sweat moustache, hello humidity. And my first time learning a traditional dance, the Watu, on a shoreside cocoa farm.

The in-country trip was for our client Strongim Bisnis, is an Australian Government initiative working in partnership with the private sector and Solomon Islands Government to make a strong, positive and lasting impact through business growth. Harvey has worked directly with local startups in the agricultural, tourism and women’s economic development sectors to support their marketing. Similar to how we support our clients in Australia, we serviced marketing strategy, brand ID, packaging, customer research, brand strategy, ecommerce and collateral to help their businesses grow. After many months of working over Zoom with clients in coco, coconut and produce I headed to the capital Honiara for two weeks, to see our client’s businesses in context and run in-field customer research. 

Visiting Numbu village with MK Local Foods

I started the trip strong, eager to soak up as much knowledge and experience as possible. On my first morning I met our Strongim Bisnis colleagues at Breakwater cafe. We decided to take the opportunity for a Saturday to head to Debbie’s, Harvey’s client and owner of MK Local Foods, village of Numbu to meet Debbie’s extended family who grow all the food sold through MK. 

Selling fresh produce and traditional dishes of ‘motu’ (slow cooked meat and fish over stones) to Honiaran’s, MK Local Foods faced logistic and communication challenges with their customers. A common method for ordering products in the Solomons is through Facebook messenger or calls/texts to the owner, which understandably can be a lot to manage. Harvey worked with MK owner, Debbie Lukisi, on building the first eCommerce store for small business in the Solomon Islands to streamline ordering and support their to scale. We were engaged to deliver brand and marketing strategies, visual identity design and a Shopify store that could be managed by Debbie and her team. 

Two Strongim Bisnis colleagues Erin and Gianluca, local photographer Eugene, Debbie and I packed into the Hilux ute and proceeded to drive out of the capital over corrugated roads with potholes so deep you could rappel into. As we drove for a couple of hours further into the jungle and Debbie began waving more and more to the passersby ‘My family’ she explained to me. Lovely. It quickly became clear Debbie’s family was a whole village, waving at bus loads of people at a time. 

“Stop! We’re here” Debbie called out. We stretched our legs climbing the tropical flower and palm covered hill at the entrance to Debbie’s homestead, strolled past a couple of homes that reminded me of the classic Queenslanders, off the ground, breezy in the heat. As we peeked over to the top of the hill, I was surprised to see we were being greeted by the whole village (at least those who remained from the busloads we'd waved to earlier). Some women standing or sitting in the shade with the little kids, the men and boys over to the other side, watching us walk in. Unprepared to be formally received by people, I quickly tried to gracefully wipe my sweat moustache that had formed in the 2 minutes being outside the air conditioned Hilux. 

Before us, standing in front of a newly built house stood a row of about 10 women, matching in blue tropical print shirts. Panning the landscape I looked around at the huge tropical trees, the kind that always seem to die in my draughty Melbourne houses. Then the ladies began to sing. 

“We are glad to welcome you, we welcome you today. We welcome you my dear brothers, we welcome my dear sisters, we welcome you today” they harmonised to us.

Erin appeared at my side and whispered “You’re about to be leid, I’ll hold your camera”. “Oh ah, right. What do I do?” I whispered back hurriedly. “Bob down!” Erin replied. Children carrying intricate, colourful leis skipped towards me, I bopped down until my head was about level with theirs. A first for me, smiling and trying to blink the tears out of the corner of my eyes, I was humbled to receive such a beautiful welcome. 

After introducing myself to the Elders, including head of the family Auntie Florence, we were welcomed into the new building for introductions to the village and to share how we were working with MK Local foods and our goals for their growth. MK was the primary source of income for the village, this meant business to succeed. I heard of their challenges in selling, supply and impact weather was having on their crops. and we spoke of the opportunities to grow and how we could best tell their brand story. I saw first hand where the produce was grown and in that moment understood the reality of logistics to get this food back into the city. It was a few hours one way on a dusty FWD road (known to bog cars and vans during the wet season). Marketing needed to be clear, communicative and committed to customer service.

A feast was prepared of motu chicken, fresh tropical fruits and local dishes. I looked over to an aunty holding a long thin knife, cutting open fresh young coconuts and popping straws in. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually drunk fresh coconut water” I said to Erin. She translated to the room of people and her laugh was echoed by those around us. The aunty popped a straw into the coconut she’d just sliced a wedge from and handed it to me. I felt many eyes around the room watching me take my first sip. The blanket of humidity that had wrapped me up since the moment I stepped off the plane began to life as I felt the coconut’s thirst quenching powers wash over me standing in the heat immediately, “ohhh that’s pretty good!”. More laughter!

Another first. 

Workshops and connection

It was a special first day that led two special weeks of meeting our clients in person, customer research training, half day workshops presenting on brand strategy and content creation to groups of up to 60 local business owners and marketers. 

Kokonut Pacific Solomon Islands (KPSI)

We’d been working with local coconut product manufacturers KPSI for a number of months on their strategy to release a new product category - locally grown cocoa. The goal was to release cocoa drinking chocolate that was proudly grown and processed in the Solomon Islands, a unique offering in the market. We’d designed a customer research campaign to take three variations of the drinking chocolate out into market to ask locals what they though. We had ‘sweet’, ‘original’ and ‘rich’ samples each varying in the sugar:cocoa ratio. We designed product packaging to get feedback on what was appealing to consumers. Arriving to the KPSI head office with over 300 stickers and airtight sachet packaging in my luggage to share with the team. We spent a day or two training the team on how to conduct customer research, table set up, flow of feedback stations etc. On days 3-5 we took to the local shopping centre, two tables, clipboards, questionnaires and 90 samples of drinking chocolate. Passersby talked about behaviour and habits around drinking chocolate then they sampled sweet, original and rich. Most feedback was collected in Pigin and later translated to English. The results were aggregated into findings to inform what products KPSI take to market for their launch in 2024, packaging designs and what messaging resonated best with locals. We’re looking forward to stage 2 of the project, launch and delivery into market across the provinces.

Northwest Guadalcanal Development Association (NWGDA)

Simon Chottu founder and owner of the NWGDA operates (among other things) the ‘NWGDA Fresh Market’ a fresh food wholesaler connecting regional and remote farmers with local supermarket Bulk Shop. We supported NWGDA to brand the offering at ‘Fresh Market’ to ensure it could be identified and distinct from the association’s other offerings (sporting teams, business consultancy etc.). After working through the brand and marketing strategies, defining the visual ID, we sought to strengthen the public perception of the quality of the Fresh Market produce. Visiting the Bulk Shop to see opportunities to on how to improve in-store display to promote NWGDA Fresh Market produce. Oftentimes it is sparsely filled, black plastic crates dominate and products of varying quality and added to shelves. Instead, we wanted to create appeal for this local product, emphasising it wasn’t imported and fresher than alternatives.

With Bulk Shop supporting our trial display, we worked within a few hours to make some changes with what we had on hand. We incorporated simple signage highlighting the origin of the produce, price tickets, added attention grabbing fresh banana leaves to bring colour and freshness, and arranged product selection to be abundant , fresh and enticing.

The trial was a success. After we finished the presentation around 3pm it was reported 90% of the produce sold out by the end of the day. If the changes to the display at the major retailer can be implemented long term it will increase positive brand awareness, sales and build demand for the product. More broadly if NWGDA Fresh Market can demonstrate quality and premium nature of their local and organically grown produce it will lift the perception of Solomon Island produced products to a new level. 

Now back at my desk at home in Melbourne as I write this reflection, two things stand out. Firstly, how much richer my contribution to the projects can be moving forward now I’ve had a glimpse of the culture and context these businesses operate in. Secondly, the people I’ve had the opportunity to get to know. Digital communication allows you to be borderless, skip over time zones and be productive at all hours. But the in-person experiences, shaking hands, seeing facial expressions, trying fresh coconuts for the first time really fill up my cup. Cannot wait to go back!