By Robert Wheatley

Today we explore the prescription for building a true Trailblazer brand. On the one hand the word Trailblazer immediately suggests a business that understands the importance of innovation and new ideas. But Trailblazing frankly is so much more. It’s as much about a new method of brand building as it is a sense of forward-looking attitude. One that delivers the necessary resolve to attack your own business to uncover weaknesses and identify new business opportunities.

Why Trailblaze?

The forces of commoditization and price pressure are everywhere, helped by the difficult economy. Competitive threats are also multiplied by the ability of new ideas and upstart companies to quickly gain traction in the digital world. There’s no longer a significant barrier to market entry based on sheer size. Just look at Method competing successfully against , P&G and Unilever.

On the one hand current economic pressures will test the strength of brands and those with weak equity or lack of differentiation face the growing possibility of being squeezed out. And on the other, the consumer’s unrelenting interest now in what’s new and different, works to shorten product lifecycles. Thus the requirement and momentum these days for true white space innovation, more so than modest line extension tweaks and adjustments.

You really don’t have much choice except to look for and adopt Trailblazer behaviors to stay ahead of commoditization and to remain relevant.

Brand Trailblazing…

In the era of consumer control and opt-in engagement, it is no longer possible to dictate and tell the consumer what to buy, or use ample amounts of “shout” media in an effort to persuade and convince.

The goal of Trailblazer brand building is to find the most effective path to preference and sales, one that springs from greater differentiation and in some cases, new category creation. The iPhone is not another cell phone — it ushered in a new category of mobile devices that integrate computer-like capability and experience in a hand-held.

Mattering

Successful brands today matter to their users. This importance isn’t achieved simply by riding the wave of a large media budget (shouting). Now the onus is on business to earn permission to a brand relationship, one built on addressing mutual interests. We can call this reciprocity.

So brand relationships must start with a strong foundation of relevance, meaning and value to the users’ lifestyle. Said another way, the focus is no longer just on the product’s superior formulation or design – which is now table-stakes – but also on its ability secure greater meaning beyond the utility and functionality it offers.

The Trailblazer Formula

There are two mechanisms at the core of successful Trailblazing:

First is insight into the core user’s interests, passions, wants and needs.

Second is carefully blending that knowledge into a compelling brand value proposition that not only considers the financial and functional requirements, but the intangible and emotional cues as well – the last two being the most powerful and important. Consumers are simply NOT “fact-centered, data-processing organisms.” We are social and emotional creatures who base decisions on how we feel about brands more so than the specs on a sell sheet.

The study around consumer insights and constructing a remarkable brand value proposition provides the discovery tools to take the really big leap in Trailblazer brand building: determining a brand’s Higher Purpose or strategic mission – this is essentially a unique place where consumer lifestyle passions and needs collide with a brand’s ability to help enable, support and play a role in those activities or concerns.

Determining the Higher Purpose allows us to imbue a brand with greater meaning. A strategic mission is essentially a Big Idea that has the power to inform brand behavior and provide reliable direction for communications strategy and outreach (bringing the mission to life). When brands operate this way they no longer look at consumers as transactions, but rather as friends. And thus as brands adopt more human-like qualities in their relationships with customers, trust is established and a relationship can genuinely take hold.

Of course these relationships, like friendships, need constant care and feeding. The outcome is preference and sales.

The tricky part is getting the needed insight into consumer lifestyle priorities. For a 20-something adult beverage consumer it may be the concern they place on social experiences. For the home cook, their fascination and desire to learn and acquire new skills. Alignment with those needs allows a brand to build a stronger bond, add relevance and deliver greater value to its user.

To in a word — matter.

What do you think?