Tide has been an iconic, trusted brand for 60 years. Now, the power of the brand has lent itself to a new chain of franchises and a brilliant new way for Procter & Gamble to expand the Tide name.

Tide Dry Cleaners illustrates the power of a brand and its ability to expand into new channels. Its the same Tide you’ve trusted at home now blended with the service of a neighborhood dry cleaners. Not only do they make your clothes brighter, as their website puts it, they now make your day brighter.

How can your brand promise extend in to new channels?

Consumer’s know when you’re selling them. Putting things on sale, making a direct attack on your competitor; consumers are getting tired of the same old approach and it doesn’t create a true relationship with the consumer. How can you take selling to a different level and really engage your consumer?

Instead of a typical jewelry sale, Stephen Webster created an in-store experience. With a Murder She Wrote theme Stephen Webster got people in to the store through an event with the primary purpose being engagement.

There was the appearance of foul play (a gentleman with a stiletto wound to the heart) and all sorts of clues. There were also several potential perpetrators (all attractive) that invited guests were asked to interview in order to discern who the culprit might be. It was fun, engaging and paid off the jewelry lines intent and sold quite a bit of jewelry, in that order.  The event said something about the Stephen Webster brand, it’s sense of humor and play.

What’s your brand saying at point of sale?

Krispy Kreme is of course known for their doughnuts and if I told you they sprinkled a little crack in them, you couldn’t argue with me—because they are SO delicious – well – They don’t.

They are also known for their decor which was standardized in the 1960s. Their green roof and red-glazed brick exterior are iconic but the centerpiece of each store is the large viewing window which reveals doughnuts in production.  

As consumers watch the doughnuts travel along an overhead conveyor belt, they become a part of the doughnut-making experience. It becomes more than a retail store; it becomes a destination, food theatre and an experience you can share with others. Take my word for it – even though it is an automated process, your doughnuts are fresh and amazing!

Is your business conducive to showing off? What’s your theatre?

Consumers are keeping a closer eye on their finances this year as we head in to the holiday season.  They will do anything for deals these days and that doesn’t necessarily mean waiting until Black Friday (or Cyber Monday) to purchase all those presents.

Holiday shopping is now a year round online endeavor for a lot of people. According to Google over 1/3 of consumers started their e-holiday shopping in May. Free shipping and prompt delivery services are helping consumers feel more confident about online purchases. It also helps consumer buy immediately instead of waiting in line and hunting for deals at different stores.

As results are coming in for Black Friday sales, we are also seeing that online shopping was just as strong as any other day, “Despite some analysts’ predictions that the flurry of brick-and-mortar retailers opening their doors early for Black Friday would pull dollars from online retail, we still saw a banner day for e-commerce with more than $800 million in spending,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

So, did your consumers skip the lines this year? How did your Black Friday sales compare to years past?

A lot is getting thrown at today’s consumer – new products, constant messaging and new promotions. How can you break through the clutter?

Consumers are looking for products and experiences that mean more and push their personal boundaries and expectations.
Apple pushed consumer boundaries with expression-enabling in our tech devices.
Pull-In engages consumers in the process of picking out underwear.
And the Mario Andretti Racing Experience offers consumers an experience they’ll never forget and maybe more than that, a memory they thought they’d never experience.

Companies that offer these experiences and push the boundaries of consumer expectation will create surprise, an emotion that when positive and repeated over and over will keep consumers coming back, again and again.

How does your brand surprise consumers?

Every brand in the drug aisle has a name you can’t understand, maximum strength options, multiple forms, faster release and ingredients you can’t pronounce. In a market that has become increasingly complicated, commercialized and over proliferated (like most consumer products these days) Help Remedies, a New York City-based boutique pharma company, has intentionally embraced a simpler, more transparent approach to offering OTC products. They have taken their minimalist approach and combined it with simple, artful, and illustrative ads that are poignant and share worthy.

A great example of breaking thru by offering less and staying true to a simple mission. All of Help’s solutions are made with single active ingredients, the fewest possible coating and dyes and each product is titled after the specific symptom it is meant to solve.

We have to imagine that this is only the first of many consumer categories that will see simplicity becoming the antidote to the “choice exhaustion” often being experienced in stores right now.

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Shared by Christi Helsel

In todays economy we all need small wins, little things that get us through the day. Sometimes that means consumers are looking to associate with someone, with something, that evokes the way they feel, the way they live and think.

A great example happened over the weekend, the Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez fight. The third of two previously contested matches.

I was lucky enough to be at the weigh-in, the MGM auditorium reached capacity and had to close the doors, that’s never happened before and it was for one reason, there were a lot of Filipino and Mexican fans there to cheer on Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez. Partly because each come from the respective countries of the representative fans but both are also amalgams of the fans themselves.

Each fighter comes from extreme poverty and has become the best on the planet at something special. Each carrying their countries on their backs, fearing defeat more from the perspective of letting their countrymen down than from their personal egos.

I realized that the fight represented more than just the competition between these two fighters. It represented pride, nationalism and hope.

Are there brands out there that rally consumers emotionally and genuinely understands their consumers plight? How do they show it? Does your brand show it?

Consumers are always on the lookout for fresh design, new colors and inspired thinking. Everyone wants to stand out in the crowd, with the products they use, the food they eat and what they wear, it’s all a part of their identity. Brands that pay off consumers identity add real value to consumers lives.

In 2000, Emmanuel Loheac revolutionized the conservative world of underwear and lingerie with this very premise. He established an “unconventional and highly creative brand of underwear; influenced by the latest trends and yet high-tech in it’s use of high-quality materials (microfibre Lycra Invista)”. The artistry of the printed fabrics and the elastic waistbands remains to this day the key to the Pull-In identity.

“The image of Pull-In Underwear never fails to develop in line with the founding ideals of its creators: originality and quality.” (company website)

Keeping things original and updated keeps consumers looking for what’s next. They will always want the latest edition. How can you keep things fresh and get consumers coming back for more?

One way to improve your effectiveness in the marketplace is to identify and reach out to underserved markets. The ability for a brand to effectively appeal to these underserved consumers is what then sets them apart. The key seems to be that you have to reach out to your audience contextually – you can’t just change your positioning and expect people to follow.

You don’t hear about it often in their ad campaigns but JCPenney has been a key brand to offer action sports brands to fans. For three consecutive years, they have been a sponsor at the Dew Tour. They are reaching out to the underserved – boarders, bikers, street smart teens – on these consumers desired platforms, not in daily advertisements.

JCPenney gets down and dirty when they need to. Can your brand extend to other targets?

To conclude our series on companies innovating to create positive change we took notice of the Ten in Three initiative developed by Taylor Conroy, a firm believer in giving back to the world and author of the Destroy Normal blog.

Ten in Three is an initiative to persuade groups of friends to contribute $10,000 in just three hours, to be put towards the construction of a new school in a disadvantaged area. The website encourages groups of 33 friends to donate USD 3.33 every day to go towards the construction of a school. The location of the school can be chosen by the group. In order to give recognition to the givers, as well as spreading the word about the project, a website is created with the donors’ pictures and web badges and email signatures are emailed to all members of the group.

Check out the video below for more details:

Unique Way to Donate: Through personal connection