Just What is a TrailBlazer Brand?

At one point in time, it might have been exclusively those brash upstarts who invent new categories in their garage. Following a rapid rise to good fortune, it becomes acquisition targets for larger players. Today, given the upheaval in marketplace dynamics and the rise of consumer control that ultimately narrows the competitive advantage of sheer aircraft carrier size, both category leaders and followers must adopt the behavior of a TrailBlazer to stay ahead of the innovation curve.

Here are a few characteristics of the true TrailBlazer:

• TrailBlazers have a visceral appreciation of the need to constantly reinvent themselves, to avoid the calcifying effects of resting on your laurels. They recognize that in today's market place, nothing short of remarkable, meaningful products that engage the consumer are required to stay ahead of the constant drive underneath to commoditize everything that doesn't cause the consumer to care.
  
• TrailBlazers routinely think beyond any inherent limitations imposed by their current manufacturing configuration or source investments.
  
• TrailBlazers culturally respect and cultivate the efforts of internal creatives who work to drive new ideas through the organization. They refrain from diluting concepts and nurture new approaches without subjecting them to layer upon bureaucratic layer of review that works to avoid risk.
  
• TrailBlazer brands are not afraid of failure and encourage experimentation. They assiduously avoid testing regimens and analytical rituals that may push an important innovation from breakthrough down to vanilla.
  
• TrailBlazers are slavishly focused on consumers. They regularly invest in the kinds of consumer anthropology research that aims to learn, to understand interests, wants, behaviors and needs. They want a dialogue, an open relationship with their customers based on transparency and mutual trust.
  
• TrailBlazers are ahead of the curve in utilizing communications strategies that reach beyond the conventional go-to-market tool box in their respective categories. They know the days of bombast, hype and interruption marketing are gone and now credibility and believability reign supreme as the factors in maintaining healthy relationships between consumers and brands.
• Trailblazing is about creating sustainable growth and profitability. It is based on an understanding that the playing field has been permanently leveled and that the consumers expectations are high.

Anything less than constant reinvention and investment in relationship building will result in price being the dominant conversation about achieving business results. Once caught in the price vortex, it is difficult to get out.

Tools of the TrailBlazer

Recognition and acknowledging the need for change -- The first step to recovery. This is followed closely by a willingness to reinvent. Becoming a TrailBlazer means that conventional product development and go-to-market processes and strategies need to be overturned. In their place will come a slate of unconventional and brave steps that work to force fundamental re-appraisal of what your brand is about.
Faithfully follow and execute your muse. While absolutely respectful of consumers and the need to matter to them, TrailBlazers don't base their business strategies on the wagging compass needles of the latest Hot New Trend. They are instead confident and resolute in their ability to produce products and services with sufficient value and inspiration that their allure glows naturally.
Walk in your consumers shoes. Listen, listen and then listen again. In the end having a place in the consumers heart and mind is the goal of any successful business. The days of talking at people are over. A collaborative and collegial relationship with consumers is necessary to remain competitive and to assure your products and marketing are relevant. You must know the brand faithful as well as you know your own children. This requires time, investment and priority.
Establish the pathway. In the end, everything matters. And because everything matters to achieve brand success, all stakeholders including employees, management, suppliers and customers need to sign up. The vision must be clearly articulated and spread virally. As outreach moves to consumers, it should feel credible, natural and discoverable. Our role is to help you design the roadmap, to work alongside and in partnership with you to move in a new direction and enjoy the process as well as the outcome.

New Category Blaze

In keeping with the general move towards healthier eating, one company in Boulder, Colorado, White Wave, Inc., stepped in to pioneer mainstreaming the soymilk business. Now a part of Deans Foods, their Silk brand owns the top share position with a premium priced product that delivers strong margins and continues to grow. They have used this platform to expand into other areas of the store with soy-based ideas. They have also translated their expertise into a strong private label business in club stores (Kirkland for Costco).

Soy education is their mantra, and they pursue it like missionaries. They recognize that consumers may not be fully aware of the benefits of soy consumption. So their efforts are focused on building the category more so than the usual brand, brand, brand approach. We suspect that even if they weren't the category leader, they would still be out preaching the wisdom of soy. There's a certain energy here based on making the world a better place that permeates the company's communications strategies. It feels like a rallying point and we suspect a sense of purpose inside their organization.

Beat-the-Big-Guys Blaze

Also in the beverage category, Boston Beer has emerged as a leading, national independent brewer with their Sam Adams brand. And while Corona wins by a mile in sheer volume and share within the specialty/import segment, they lack the innovation pedigree that shows up in Jim Koch's strategies. In every segment of the better beer game, Koch is playing effectively. The company makes a unique one-of-a-kind specialty brew that goes for $100 a bottle.

They just launched Chocolate Bock in time for Valentines Day. The beer business is structured to favor bigness due in part to the two-step distribution process. Big brands hold sway over distributors and distributors hold sway over what flies and dies in on and off-premise channels. Despite this reality, Boston Beer has thrived while every other small brewer has succumbed to acquisition, has disappeared entirely, or not grown beyond regional distribution. Koch is the eminence grise of the better beer business, which unlike its mass brand rivals shows signs of continued growth -- despite inroads by liquor brands in taking share with young adult drinkers who dominate consumption. You just have to respect this guy for starting from scratch and building a national business that remains solid even though the odds are stacked against it happening. Flavor innovation is now on A-Bs list of things to do which is a real statement about Koch's success.

SKU Blaze

We dont have the Nielsen data to determine if this is a winner yet or a dog, but we like the tenacity of olive oil leader Bertolli in creating their unique Bertolli-dinner-for-two product in the freezer case. Everything about this delivers. The restaurant style varieties, all developed by respected chefs, hit strong on appetite appeal for Food Adventurer types. The packaging has a high quality look and feel to it. Taste we tried it and liked it. At $6.99 to $7.99 for a bag is no small cost compared to its shelf-mates, but the outcomes are satisfying.

What works: their sauce discs melt quickly in the saut pan to the pasta doesn't burn during heating. Ingredients are good, recipes seem well executed. Enough variety to keep you intrigued and coming back. The freezer case inherently carries with it certain quality/taste expectation baggage and hence the deli aisle may be more easily seen as the location of high quality, higher price point products for the consumer. Nonetheless, we think they've kicked it up a notch with a good product. Who knows if they have the support and patience necessary to keep this moving, but we felt it deserved mention.

Marketing Blaze

Tea may indeed be another next big thing. It is an emerging specialty retail category (Argo Tea) and unlike coffee, an interesting functional benefit (relaxation, sleep, cold remedy) equation that's been developed in entertaining fashion by natural foods company Hain-Celestial. At one level, tea may benefit from some association with eastern mysticism and lore about its medicinal qualities - as well as the European sophisticate high tea ceremonial/social experience involving this brewed beverage.

What we like is Celestial's efforts to employ functional and fun flavor variations in a unique way that help invite trial and give the brand an artisanal feel. Moreover, from a communications standpoint, there is an emerging body of science that shows a relationship between tea consumption and heart health. Celestial is championing this by focusing a lot of their marketing activity against the heart health proposition.

An example of their efforts took place during New York's recent annual homage to the rag trade, Olympic Fashion Week. Celestial hired a prominent fashion designer to create a dress, shoes, handbag and accessories made entirely out of tea bag packaging in an effort to draw media attention to the brands involvement with the Red Dress Foundation (a charitable organization focus on heart health for women). The red tea bag dress was a great way to establish a strong publicity platform that provided a natural segue to talking about the unique benefits of tea consumption -- but in a branded way. This is a brand that is mining the relevance message (heart health) with its target audience on the one hand, while romancing them with entertaining flavor and benefit varieties on the other. They have segmented their offering into dessert, chai, white, green, black, cider, herb, organic, wellness, iced, holiday, fruit variations in their Zinger line, even cause related recipes.

Positioning Blaze

Over in the HBA aisle, were taken with Unilever's DOVE line and the real-women campaign hat has helped disrupt the time worn perceptions of this old line brands identity and refreshed their positioning. The campaign violates a lot of rules slavishly followed for years by top brands in the HBA category -- so we suspect the whole idea was championed internally by someone with a fair amount of chutzpah.

Building on this idea they've created a bold communications strategy under the flag: Campaign for Real Beauty -- aimed at helping younger women respect themselves and to help build their self-esteem. We see this as brand relationship building because it hits on an emotional trigger many women recognize immediately. This functions to give the brand permission to have a relationship with its target on a higher level.

And now, they're extending this groundbreaking behavior pattern tactically with an on-line marketing effort behind their new Night Time Classics line. Actress and Oscar nominee Felicity Huffman stars in a series of fun, quirky on-line Webisodes directed by Penny Marshall. Its a great device for luring visitors to the site that also serves to generate buzz/WOM and trial offers for the brand.

There are certainly other interesting new ideas showing up in the Pizza case, ice cream (Edy's churned product), soup (Campbell's Select line) etc. but all have the air of line extension and hence may not qualify in our definition of TrailBlazer. There are a few shared characteristics here: authenticity, boldness, a higher purpose (missionary work), strong internal champions, out-of-the-box communications and engaging ideas that we think will resonate with consumers. -->

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