Five characteristics of a true Trailblazer brand…

A recurring subject theme at our blog is how to build a Trailblazer brand. The word Trailblazer is a useful descriptive term about the DNA of a brand that has the right stuff in place to drive incremental growth – even in a difficult economy.

So what are the five uniformly consistent, prevailing characteristics of a brand Trailblazer? Here’s a quick summary:

1. Category Creators

Marketing is no longer a battle of incremental-ism and being XX percent better than the competition. Trailblazers understand how to dial their brands far enough to the right or left of category norms and behaviors in order to capture their Power Positioning – a term we use to describe working to carve out a new category. Category ownership is the right path towards relevance, engagement and value.

2. Differentiation and Sacrifice

Trailblazer brands prosper because they are unique and highly differentiated. The process of achieving a truly differentiated brand cannot occur without sacrifice. This requires a strong sense of self and purpose that allows the brand stewards to focus on being meaningful to the right audience. “All things to all people” is a recipe for being meaningful to no one and thus a commodity.

3. Consumer–centricity

Trailblazers are devoted to understanding the “low hanging fruit” like they know their own family. This means the primary cultural focus day-in and day-out is to study the core consumer’s lifestyle interests and passions. These organizations direct considerable energy, effort and investment in consumer anthropology more so than on reacting to competitor moves.

4. Edge and Exploration

Trailblazing is exactly that: a steely willingness to buck convention, to step up when others prefer more conservative play. Trailblazers are risk-takers and work hard to stay on the innovation path. They allow their best customers to participate in the product innovation process. And assiduously avoid testing rituals that work to push product concepts from truly remarkable to plain vanilla.

5. Strategic Mission

We have routinely described the need for brands to find and mine their “higher purpose.” The Strategic Mission, therefore, is to secure Trailblazer brand relevance by helping core users realize and fulfill their personal quest for understanding, experiences or knowledge. You do this by developing and investing in activities of value to them.

Trail blaze anyone?