Driving Awareness And Demand For Upstart Brands

Brad VanAuken The Blake ProjectNovember 23, 20102 min

We are happy to answer marketing questions of all types here on Branding Strategy Insider. Today, Mike, a Marketer in Princeton, New Jersey writes… 

Brad and Derrick, my question is this: For a small or upstart brand, that is meaningfully differentiated, to secure distribution in a national mass retailer like Walgreens and CVS, the retailers require the brand to spend on a national media campaign (TV, radio, print) to drive demand for the product and traffic to the store. What advertising strategies and tactics can a brand employ with a budget of $1MM to meaningfully drive awareness and demand in this fragmented media world?

Mike, thanks for your question. On that budget, for a nationally distributed consumer product through mass channels, I would consider one of the following:

  • Start out on a more limited geographic basis, perhaps as a test market, with one or two national chains and growing in a more controlled way over time.
  • Use most or all of the $1 million to create a publicity stunt that has the potential to generate substantial national publicity for an extended period of time.
  • Use most or all of the $1 million to create a very unusual or compelling viral game or other entertaining item that is designed to spread rapidly through email and social media.
  • If you are required to use paid media, co-market your products with other manufacturers who have substantially larger budgets and with which there is good synergy. In this case, you will have to determine how you will add value to those marketing partners.
  • Focus on creating an in-store merchandising approach that enhances the retailer’s seasonal aisle with excitement (if your product can be sold as a seasonal product).
  • Aggressively seek additional funding for more marketing support.

Stay tuned Mike, BSI readers may have additional thoughts.

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One comment

  • Ed Soehnel

    November 24, 2010 at 9:48 pm

    Consider using direct response/infomercials. If you can get DR to be near breakeven, your marketing dollars will go far in building brand and driving retail sales. Eventually, when you are in widespread retail distribution, DR may turn very unprofitable. But at that point, hopefully you will have sufficient scale and retail presence to then switch to standard brand awareness mass advertising that you can now support. Not knowing what your product is, but I would guess that if you do it smart and watch costs, you can get a DR campaign up and running and tested for under $75K.

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