‘A mighty springboard’: What’s next for TeamO after its DAME victory?
TeamO’s marketing manager Hermione Barfield, reveals that the company had its sights firmly set on a DAME award from the outset with its Offshore 150N Hi-Lift Lifejacket & Harness.
Now, the firm is reaping the rewards of its success — not just for its impressive design innovations (including a 60 per cent increase in mouth freeboard compared to leading competitors), but also as the proud winner of both the personal equipment category and the coveted overall winner title at the 2024 DAME Design Awards.
Now Barfield is looking at what comes next, and leveraging the award to its full advantage.
“We have a superb platform, but we have to be focused on pushing the Hi-Lift forward and delivering it into the shops and out to the customers,” Barfield tells MIN during a conversation at TeamO’s colourful booth at METSTRADE.
“There needs to be a lot of education about the brand and the product and where it’s come from.
“We’re gathering momentum through socials etc. Hopefully, the industry will build and is receptive to new safety products and the replacement of old ones.”
Barfield says she’s “ready to take the market head-on.”
After the trade show in 2023, TeamO focused on building its entry of the Hi-Lift for the 2024 DAME round, spending 12 months on the design and development process, while also consolidating its BackTow design. The latter, TeamO explains on its website, is the only lifejacket with a moveable harness point meaning it’ll keep a sailor face up if they fall overboard while clipped on to their vessel. (All other lifejacket harnesses will tow the wearer faced down in the water.)
Barfield notes that winning a DAME award is a “mighty springboard into 2025. It’s massive. The award builds the brand, and we have to build off the back of it in terms of who we are and what we stand for. But we still have small budgets and have to be realistic about what we can do.”
The initial focus is getting it to market, but Barfield says TeamO is also thinking about a Solas variant for the middle of 2025. “We’ve had a lot of enquiries. It’s in the pipeline to look at. But the initial focus is getting the Hi-Lift to market.
“There’s lots and lots to do. We need to maintain brand image and keep websites rolling. B2C is very different marketing.”
Building on the BackTow’s success, Barfield says the new Hi-Lift development was very much a team event.
“People from the office were in the water, in the pool.”
And while the company’s personnel are all bought-in, likewise the DAME judges (Andre Hoek, chair of the DAME Design Awards jury, says: “It was an excellent new development in safety . . . a perfect reminder of how we can never stop improving product categories that have been an essential part of boating for decades.”), Barfield concedes all the leaps that the Hi-Lift has made aren’t completely understood by the wider market and that the communication of all its features will be an ongoing process.
Hi-Lift features a twisted bladder
The Hi-Lift has a twisted bladder design that moves most of the wasted buoyancy above the waterline of a conventional design to an inflated pillow on the user’s back. This directly lifts the upper torso from the water and keeps the nose and mouth higher.
The wide set front of the jacket provides stability in the water and controls the orientation of the face and body in line with ISO Standards. The performance increase of the 150N Hi-Lift now outperforms the ISO standard for a 275N lifejacket.
The re-distribution of the bladder volume also allows the product to be slimmer when packed, making it much more likely to be worn when on and near the water.