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Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

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246 BRAND RELEVANCE<br />

A retailer normally services a customer. But, at a do - your -<br />

own frozen yogurt deserts retailer, you operate the machines<br />

<strong>yours</strong>elf, using as much of each fl avor as you want. Then you<br />

can put on any combination of some fi fty or so toppings, including<br />

hot fudge. Your choice, you are in charge. No more being<br />

satisfi ed with a fi xed size and a choice of a single topping and<br />

waiting for a server to make those decisions. Local pioneers are<br />

dominating local markets and have carved a growth subcategory<br />

out of a rather stagnate category.<br />

Kettle Foods nearly doubled its market share in the premium<br />

potato chip category in fi ve years, approaching the 20 - percent<br />

level in 2010 with a highly differentiated subcategory offering<br />

defi ned by its all - natural processes, by its over - the - top sustainability<br />

commitment, and by its customer involvement in generating<br />

quirky fl avors. It all started when Kettle asked customers<br />

to choose among fi ve fl avors using a “ crave - o - meter ” scale. The<br />

response was so enthusiastic that Kettle developed a program<br />

for getting customer input on possible fl avors that has resulted<br />

in dozens of new products including Fully Loaded Baked Potato<br />

and Spicy Thai. The program has given energy and authenticity<br />

to the line that simple factory - generated line extensions could<br />

not have done. It has defi ned a subcategory based on how the<br />

product is made, the fl avors, and the sustainability commitment.<br />

Nintendo, introduced in the last chapter, launched the<br />

Wii in 2006, the ultimate involving offering. Using the Wii<br />

remote, which detects movement in three dimensions, the user<br />

can dance, box, play a guitar, and on and on. A user can even<br />

play tennis or baseball and compete against someone across the<br />

world. The Wii ’ s sales reached nearly thirty million units in<br />

2008, two years after its introduction — nearly as much as Sony ’ s<br />

PS3 and Microsoft ’ s Xbox combined (33.4 million units).<br />

Offerings Tailored to Segments<br />

A common evolution is for a category to fragment into subcategories<br />

as it matures in order to reach customers who are underserved

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