As our supermarket shelves become more and more full of home brands (generics), the desire to be different or unique is creating a whole new trend in boutique branding.
Boutique and Brands is almost an oxymoron because once the lifecycle of a product gets to a stage where the product is mainstream, the brand is no longer boutique.
Small to medium sized businesses with boutique rands often utilise viral or buzz marketing and execute them with far more success than big corporations.
So how can you create a boutique brand in today’s world?
One way is the ask your target audience to get involved with your product before you start, and that’s exactly what the Blowfly beer company did in a process they call “Open source beer making”. They collaborated with the online community to design and create a new beer. Here’s how they describe it …
We’re the lunatics from Brewtopia. Backed by one of the best up and coming breweries in the Australia, in 2002 we created a beer built on a concept we called Viral Equity – thousands of people across 20 countries helping us make a brand new beer over the internet. Crazy? Yes. Doomed to fail? Yes. But it didn’t….
With only the use of word of mouth marketing, they had developed a unique brand and following before they had even made their first bottle of beer.
The beauty of this company is that they created an audience during the whole product evolution process. They will even customise the label If you would like to here more about their story listen to The Gadget Show #19 where their CEO Liam Mulhall is interviewed.
I wish them every success!
So what are the key elements for building a Boutique brand? I can list a few, and would welcome any additional suggestions.
1. Involving your consumers in the product
2. Creating a reason for them to spread the message about your product
3. Offering some form of product distinction / uniqueness to your product
