Profit for purpose also at the heart of Who Gives A Crap’s new body and hair care sister brand

Unveiled in August, Good Time is a unisex hair and body bar range that is 100 per cent plastic-free, vegan and arrives at your door via carbon neutral shipping. The company claims that each bar replaces the equivalent of three plastic bottles.

The range includes three fragrant body wash bars, a soap-free shampoo bar packed with shea butter and cleansing oils like coconut, birrea seed, jojoba, as well as an oil and wax-based conditioner bar.

Like Who Gives A Crap, which donates 50 per cent of profits to build toilets in the developing world, giving back is at the core of Good Time too. The B-Corp certified brand donates 50 per cent of its profits to clean water initiatives including International Development Enterprises (iDE), WaterAid, Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), Water for People and more.

Not only do customers feel and smell good, but the added appeal of improving the lives of others certainly helps create a sense of community among its customer base.

This approach builds on 10 years of work done by Simon Griffiths-founded Who Gives A Crap which has sold more than 300 million rolls of toilet paper - enough to circle the world 867 times - and has donated $10 million-plus to charity partners along the way.

It is a prime example of a purpose-led brand; a model that professional services firm Accenture’s research arm says is becoming the norm as customers make purchasing decisions based on what a brand says, does and stands for.

Accenture Strategy’s most recent global survey of nearly 30,000 people found that 62 per cent of customers want companies to take a stand on current issues like sustainability, transparency and fair employment practices.

Speaking to Business News Australia from Los Angeles where she is based, Good Time general manager Hannah Kamran said the sister brand was “very much aligned” with its fellow bathroom supplies brother.

“We’re definitely leaning into the loyal audience of Who Gives A Crap - their branding, subscription base and loyalty that they’ve established. But we’re also creating a new brand,” said Kamran, who previously worked in marketing and partnerships roles for companies including Cadillac, Merkley + Partners and fundraising firm Omaze.

“If you’ve seen the website, you can probably tell that we’re leaning into humour too, but a little bit more clever and sophisticated, rather than over the top puns.

“It’s a shared brand, but we wanted to be a sibling rather than a sub-brand of Who Gives A Crap.”

Though water, sanitation and hygiene are areas that Who Gives A Crap has focused on philanthropy-wise via donations since it was founded, Kamran said Good Time was taking a more niche approach and was focusing on different aspects of the space when looking for organisations to donate to.

“Who Gives A Crap was really focused on toilet access, whereas the Good Time brand is a little bit more focused on clean water access, so the organisations are supporting different areas,” she said.

Kamran said the company approached product developers in the personal care space with experience in hair and body products to formulate the bars which are manufactured in the United States.

“They’re globally sourced ingredients, we’re sustainable, everything is vegan and we’ve got the same carbon neutral shipping that Who Gives A Crap offers,” Kamran said.

“I think the biggest thing we were focused on is we didn't want to sacrifice quality of performance for it being sustainable - it was quite a lengthy R&D process to make sure that the shampoo and body bars lather and provide a really rich hydrating experience and that the conditioner bar glides on your hair really well.”

Kamran also noted that the entire line was developed to be unisex from the start.

“We worked with a fragrance developer to come up with bespoke but hopefully broadly appealing fragrances - so that’s something that I would say is relatively unique,” she said.

“We didn’t want to lean into citrus, eucalyptus, botanical - I think a lot of brands can just easily go that direction. We took a lot of cues from some of the cool candle brands out to be a bit more sensorial and evoke some sort of emotion. So all of our fragrances have a name, and are supposed to be about memories.”

For example, Good Time's 'Summer's Here' body bar aims to replicate the feeling of a warm day with a mix of oils infused with parsley flakes, while the 'Morning Time' body bar contains notes of mandarin, thyme and lemon. Rounding out the trio, the 'Big Sky' body bar has a more earthy tone, and is infused with charcoal and sea kelp, with notes of pine needle, cedarwood, sandalwood and vetiver.

While the initial line is limited to five products, Kamran said Good Time was aiming on launching another trio of products either later this year or in early 2023, with the intention to provide “sustainable, high quality items that people want and need”.

In addition, the sister brand hopes to expand its distribution footprint from Australia and the US to also include the UK later this year.

And while purpose is at the heart of Good Time, ultimately Kamran said she wanted the products to speak for themselves first, rather than leaning on the philanthropic clout of Who Gives A Crap.

“I think a lot of bar brands and plastic-free products are really focused on what we call the ‘eco warriors’ - people that are willing to make a lot of sacrifices to be sustainable,” Kamran said.

“But we’re definitely leading with letting quality and brand experience speak first, and then the fact that it is both sustainable and 50 per cent of profits are donated is the extra cherry on top.

“We’re hoping to attract people that might be interested in making a habit switch and not necessarily just existing bar consumers switching to our program.”