Every great brand is like a great story.
—Kevin Plank, Founder/CEO of Under Armour
Breyer’s Girl Scout Thin Mints Ice Cream.
What a genius expansion of not one but two brands. Why did it do so well? First, Breyer’s already had related flavors: It considers mint chocolate chip, cookies and cream, and chocolate chip cookie dough among its classic flavors, so quality execution was never a concern. Of course, Girl Scouts’ Thin Mints are a much-loved and highly anticipated yearly treat. Many devotees (you may be one of them) have said for years that the cookies are best when frozen—the perfect partnership for a winning Thin Mint Ice Cream. Using a successful marketing strategy, Breyer’s smartly created a demand by introducing the product as a limited edition—echoing the cookies’ famed limited availability.
However, for every Breyers-like smash, there’s a Colgate Lasagna. That’s right, the people who make toothpaste decided, for some still unknown reason, that it was a good idea to get into the TV dinners business, including lasagna. Because toothpaste and lasagna go nicely together? It was such a disaster that, sadly, there’s a box of it in the Museum of Failure.
Here are a few tips to point you towards thin mint success instead of toothpaste lasagna:
Do Look for Related Products. Don’t Put Your Brand on Something Just Because You Can.
Just because something is a good business opportunity doesn’t mean it’s a good opportunity for your brand. Placing your brand on an unrelated product or service can confuse your customers, and a lack of clarity in messaging can harm your brand.
As Wicked Bionic recommends, look for more specialized versions of products already in your line. Or things that are used as companions to your products. General Mills, the flour manufacturer, started “Betty Crocker” cookbooks. Then GM made Betty’s baking mixes and, later, kitchen utensils. The baking brand continues to add products to help you better utilize their offerings. Brilliant.
Do Leverage Your Existing Brand by Bringing Added Value. Don’t Take On An Established Market for No Reason.
Colgate’s lasagna failed because there were already established lasagna brands. Therefore, Colgate’s brand didn’t help them gain a foothold in someone else’s market. But Colgate later decided to have a brand of toothbrushes. This made perfect sense: The people you trusted to care for your teeth were delivering their product in a new way. A Colgate toothbrush immediately seemed more credible than other toothbrush manufacturers you’d never heard of—even if they’d been in the market longer. Once again, it just seems inevitable that they’d be in that product category, too.
For more ideas on effective brand management and specific insights about your company, please get in touch with us directly.
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About the Author
Dana C. Arnett, Founder and CEO of Wicked Bionic, spent 30 years in the entertainment business before starting the agency in 2015. The Los Angeles-based multicultural communications and advertising agency works with government and private-sector clients on strategic marketing and engaging media campaigns. Dana has always loved learning from other cultures, and that curiosity became the foundation for how Wicked Bionic approaches culturally responsive marketing – building authentic connections between organizations and the communities they serve.
