The Intro
We’ve been in supplements for over 20 years.
And during that time we’ve seen some incredible things happen.
Product formulas have developed from underdosed, proprietary blends to clinically dosed, open label masterpieces.
Flavours have progressed from being bland and unexciting to delicious & sensational.
Packaging has advanced from tacky and obnoxious to professional and sleek.
And brands have evolved from basic & meaningless to iconic & inspiring.
But amongst all of these amazing advancements, a void has been revealed.
There has yet to be a supplement company that has combined a meaningful brand with world class packaging, with market leading formulas and flavours that deliver functional benefits to people yearning for growth & development.
In September 2020, we set out to see if it could be done.
We called it “Project Eclipse”.
Project, because we knew that it was going to take a collaborative effort comprising many different elements spanning a number of years.
Eclipse, because if successful, it would eclipse both anything we had worked on thus far, and anything the industry had ever seen.
So we began… every week, on Friday afternoon at 4pm, we worked on Project Eclipse.
The Name
The first thing we needed was a name.
And we knew it needed to be simple, easy to understand, and something that could transcend both borders and cultures.
Think Google, Lego, Facebook…
It needed to be a single, memorable word. But it also needed to mean something.
A name that tied into the brand mission. And a brand mission that resonated with people yearning for growth, progress & personal development.
After almost 6 months of exploration & gestation, the brand mission we conceived was “Unlock Your Potential”.
And what is required to unlock something?
A key.
The name was born… and it was, quite simply, “Key”.
The Brand Imagery
We knew the logo, the packaging, and the overall brand imagery had to be iconic. And it also had to be geometric, so that it wasn’t tied to any one language or culture.
Think Apple, Pepsi, Nike…
But it also had to be different. Something that the supplement industry had never seen before.
We knew we needed help from people who build iconic brand imagery outside of the supplement space, so in May 2021, we teamed up with Frame Creative, the agency behind Mortal Kombat, Pleasing & Sweat, and began the journey of building the brand.
Iteration after iteration, we pruned away concepts that were too basic, too complicated, too edgy, too elementary, too amateur, too professional, and most importantly, too ordinary.
After over almost 2 years of careful crafting, we assembled the very first Key Style Guide, including the logo, typography, colours, gradients, shapes & icons.
We filed for trademark protection and got to work on the next element of Project Eclipse… the packaging.
The Packaging
Since the beginning of supplement time, packaging has always been an afterthought. Design an attention grabbing label, stick it on a tub appropriately sized to fit whatever was going in it, throw in a scoop, pop on a seal, screw on a lid, and you’re good to go.
We’ve never understood this lack of care. This blatant abdication of attention to detail.
The packaging is the primary physical touchpoint..
The packaging is what gets you excited to use the product every day.
The packaging embodies everything the brand stands for.
Think the iPhone, the Coca Cola bottle, the Tiffany box…
We wanted to put as much effort into the packaging as we did the product formulation.
We wanted the packaging to be beautiful, functional, and inspiring.
And we had no idea how mammoth of a task that was going to be.
From calculating tub & scoop volumes, to engineering scoop functionality, to custom blow moulding, to colour palette matching, to custom seal design, to future product forecasting, it quickly became obvious why so many supplement companies had opted out of creating packaging from the ground up.
Another 12 months of work and careful attention to every detail and we finally created what would become the packaging for the first ever Key supplement.
A custom blow moulded matte tub with an in-built hook to house the scoop on top of the powder, a seal with a tessaled outline of the brand logo in a colour to match the tub, a soft touch lid proudly displaying the brand mission in orbit, a different custom colour for each product that runs seamlessly from label to lid, and an understated, soft touch label, with a splash of high gloss high build to provide a sensory experience like nothing else on the market.
Leonardo Da Vinci said “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” He wasn’t wrong.
But beautiful packaging doesn’t count for much without anything inside it… so while we were running full steam ahead with branding & packaging, the most important and ambitious part of Project Eclipse was bubbling away in the background… the formulation.
The Formulation
The formulation of supplements has passed through a number of different eras.
The proprietary blend era subsisted until about 2010, whereby most supplement formulations were hidden in an attempt to protect a brand’s IP and no doubt conceal underdosed ingredients from unaware consumers.
The open label era emerged in the early 2010s as a number of supplement companies sought to earn trust with consumers by completely disclosing the amounts of each ingredient used, while also incorporating efficacious, and often trademarked, ingredients in supplements.
This was a very good era for supplement formulation.
Products got better.
The effects got better.
Consumer education got better.
And then something strange happened.
As the late 2010s came to a close and the early 2020s approached, supplement companies began a bizarre trend… overdosing certain ingredients in an attempt to gain consumer attention.
We started seeing 10 grams of citrulline to promote muscle pumps, when the efficacious dose is 4 grams.
5 grams of beta-alanine to promote endurance, when 3.2 grams is more than enough in a single dose.
And most alarmingly 500 milligrams of caffeine to boost energy, when most people can’t tolerate more than 300 milligrams at a single point in time.
Too much of a good thing never ends well.
The overdosing era still endures today, and with it, synergism in supplement formulation has been all but lost.
We wanted to change this.
We wanted to initiate the next era… the synergistic era, where open label formulations used efficacious doses of scientifically validated ingredients that work harmoniously together to produce holistic effects.
Of course, the more effects, the more challenging the formulation.
A pre-workout supplement that would deliver every effect you could possibly want - pumps & nutrient delivery, power & strength, endurance, energy, mental focus, elevation in mood & hydration, would be the ultimate test.
So we started there.
No shortcuts. No cutting corners. No settling.
It took us months of trying, tweaking ingredients, trying again, tweaking again, and again, and again, and again, and again, until finally we had produced the most synergistic pre-workout formula we had seen thus far.
We had nailed the formula.
Now we just needed to make it taste incredible.
The Flavours
“It tastes pretty good for a supplement”
“It’s not bad for a pre-workout”
“It’s OK for a sleep formula”
“Pretty good for a … Not bad for a… OK for a…” is the status quo for supplement flavours.
And arguably rightfully so.
We take supplements to provide a functional benefit first and foremost. Not to provide a flavour experience.
But why can’t the flavour be as good, if not better than, the functional benefit? Why can’t supplements taste so good, that you want to consume them regardless of the benefit they provide? Why can’t the taste be a functional benefit too?
No nasty aftertaste. No exaggerated sweetness. No excessive sour tones.
The status quo is there to be challenged. So we set out to challenge it.
And to do so, we tapped into our inner child and our very early interactions with taste & nostalgic flavours.
Think fresh, juicy fruit straight out of the fridge.
Think smooth, delicious, velvety ice cream.
Think frosty ice blocks on a hot summer day.
We wanted to not only make flavours so good that you couldn’t wait to taste them every day, but also to take you on a trip down memory lane with every sip.
We decided to start with some of the most ambitious, iconic flavours we could think of… flavours we’d never seen attempted in a pre-workout supplement - Pine Lime inspired by Splice and Raspberry Pineapple inspired by Calippo.
It took 3 different flavour houses and over 10 rounds of sampling to get our first collection of flavours perfect.
And we did get them perfect.
We can’t wait for you to enjoy them.
The Vision
It’s taken us over 4 years to bring Key to life.
Some may say that’s a long time, but it’s all about perspective.
Our vision is to create a brand & line of products that helps people all over the world unlock their potential for the next 100 years.
We’ve come a long way so far, but we’ve got a lot farther to go.
Building this brand has helped us unlock our potential.
Now it’s our turn to help you unlock yours.
