There is an expectation of where you will find a brand.
Wine belongs in wine shops. Basketballs belong in sporting good shops. Cars belong at a dealer showroom. Underwear for people with incontinence belongs in a medical supply catalog or the aisle of a drugstore. But what happens when you combine lingerie and incontinence underwear and you bring that underwear onto a runway?
Disruption on the Runway
A startup brand in New Zealand called CONFITEX, decided that they needed to launch their product by breaking through the obvious. They wanted to leverage their fashionable designs and show off their incontinence lingerie. Why not bring it to the public on a catwalk? No one has ever done it. It is unexpected. By changing the context, you aren’t competing with your category found at Walgreens, instead you are associating your brand with Victoria Secret.
CONFITEX garments are designed to hold liquid throughout the course of the day and is washed the same way as normal underwear. Their technology removes moisture away from the skin and provides a waterproof environment. But the company wanted to change the conversation away from function and talk about fashion.
Making a fashion statement brought the issue of incontinence and the CONFITEX brand, out in the open.
The Un Lesson from CONFITEX
- Why are you bringing your new products to market with your competitors? Where can you go to steal the spotlight?
- How can you find a platform where you are the only brand in the public’s eye?
- Can you harness the power of context and a different environment to send a distinctive message?
- Can you create a new and fresh association for your brand that puts a spotlight on your difference?
- Can you choose a new place that your category typically doesn’t show up?
Several years ago, the company I work for was launching a new technology in wine closures. To bring it to life, my marketing team rented out space at the BMW museum in Germany to do a launch for the European wine media. By being in this environment of the ultimate driving machine, we were able to tie our product to BMW, by association.
Fast cars, amazing automobile technology, twenty-first century brakes and our wine corks. The museum helped us tell a story about technology in the fast lane. And we had the undivided attention of the media to talk about our brand.
Can you find a different venue or platform to tell your brand’s story? Can you move out of the expected into the unexpected space? Can you disrupt convention and change the conversation? Like CONFITEX, they took their product story and brought it to life through a fashion framework. They didn’t emphasize the medical function of the underwear, but focused on the aesthetics.
Is it time to bring your product to a new catwalk?
Maybe it is time to find a new venue for you to launch your next innovation. Call for a dry, waterproof and candid conversation. Let’s grow your business together.
