Been a bit of a break in the posts (I wonder if that is one of the sentences that you will see most on a blog) but now 2008 is here everything is going to be different. Or not, but definitely better.
I have a list of topics on a post it on my desk, which I want to blog about so I am going to start at number 2 and work my way up and down, just to be interesting.
Topic 2) Good products are good products the world over
When I lived in London, it used to really annoy me that in the marketing community there seemed to be only 1 brand that anybody used as an example in presentations and that was Innocent. I could never quite put my finger on why it annoyed me, something to do with lack of imagination probably. But one of things that did strike me was maybe people were only talking about Innocent because Innocent smoothies were the only good new product that they had come across recently. That is why Innocent were so successful and that success gave them the ability to do all the clever brand building things that they did.
Now another drink is supporting my point. Bionade is a great product which comes from a real philosophy and has a great story behind it. I will give you the gist of it (there are links on the website but they are of course all in German).
A small brewery in the South of Germany realised that they needed to branch out of beer brewing as they could no longer compete with the giants. The owner of the brewery wanted to create a non-alcoholic drink which was still brewed using the traditional techniques as that is what his company did best. He worked for years and years on the recipe and production until they finally launched. It wasn't an overnight success as it was originally marketed as a health drink but with the help from a marketing specialist they changed the label and distributed the drink only through small bars and in clubs. What's more the whole thing is organic and yet it comes in a beer bottle. Now things started to happen. Bionade is now really big and they are planning to expand to other countries, even the US.
And what is the moral of the story - keep it real. And make sure that you have a good product.
I wish Bionade all the best and lots of success in 2008.
PS: the line reads "The official drink of a better world"
