Marketing Failure

[Mojo]

Sometimes you hit one out of the park and sometimes you strike out. I have come to the conclusion that my idea of branding my slide toppers and awnings has been a complete and utter failure.

I think some of you remember that a year and a half ago I came up with the idea of branding my products. My slide toppers and awnings I branded as Wearforce and my solar screens I have branded as Solarforce. I marketed them on all my company literature, flyer's, business cards, web site and at my seminars. All to no avail.

The only thing people recognize and are familiar with is my personal name or my company name. Since I started this brand campaign not one customer has called or e-mailed me and asked about my products by the Wearforce or Solarforce name. They were all focused on getting MY products. Hell I haven't even been able to market my business name as many do not know it. It is me personally and my name that drives my orders which is something I really did not want.

I know this probably is not a bad thing and I should be happy because it shows I have a rock solid reputation within the RV industry. But it also pisses me off that I expended so much time and effort to brand my products and it was all for not.

What is really ironic ( and hilarious ) is that I have never had a failure with a branding campaign. I have enjoyed a great deal of success with my former clients brand roll outs and wouldn't you know it, my first bloody failure is with my own dang product............lol.

Looking back on it I believe that what created the failure was my seminars. People identified my products with me and my name because they connected with ME personally and not my product.
Oh well business is good and I am not complaining just shaking my head and wondering " what was I thinking ".  ;D

So to those of you who were skeptical of me branding my products a year or so ago............ You were right. :)

Chris

[sofadoc]

Far be it from me to lecture YOU, or anyone else for that matter about branding.,
So I'll give my opinion strictly from my own consumer point of view.
If I were searching your website, and stumbled across  brands like Wearforce or Solarforce, they would mean nothing to me because there's no established brand recognition.

And what if a customer ordered one of your products, and was very happy with it's performance?
He's probably going to go online, and try to find the WEARFORCE brand cheaper somewhere else.
They might actually be paying you the highest compliment by NOT asking for it by name.

Customers come into my shop all the time asking questions like "Is NAUGAHYDE better than vinyl?"
I still have one every now and then who will ask about HERCULON.
But by and large, our industry (the furniture end in particular) really doesn't have that many brand names that people recognize.

I hope that no one is writing all this down, cause if you're getting your marketing advice from ole sofadoc, you're in a world of hurt ;)

[mike802]

I am no guru when it comes to branding, or marketing, but my thinking on this is it takes millions of dollars to roll out a nation wide campaign to reach out to enough people to make the brand popular.  Obviously our target market is somewhat smaller than say breakfast cereal, but you know what I mean.  As little guys, people look to us personally and that can be a double edged sward.  I have often gotten in over my head with work, a few projects take longer than expected and all the sudden I am running around trying to catch up, with no one who can jump in and help out because all the work I have to do is so highly skilled, but there is no way I can keep highly skilled staff on the payroll, even it they did exist, its not like hiring someone to run a cash register, or stock shelves.  I would say Chris that a year and a half is not enough time, they say it takes five years to establish a business.  Advertising that you are the exclusive distributor and manufacture of your brands might stop people from trying to shop on line for a cheaper distributor and becoming wary when they cant find any additional information.  Short of going public and selling shares to generate the millions needed for a huge push in the RV industry, I would say just keep pluggin, keep branding and maybe some day the brand will stick.

[DBR1957]

Does your marketing include Wearforce/Solarforce by Mojo?  If you include your
regular business name the association can produce more hits to your website and
customers will slowly learn these brands are you.