Category: Uncategorized

DTC sock brand, Stance specialise in socks and due to the low MOQ/new-product-development costs has launched a lot of them. They spotted an opportunity to create new product lines designed for specific sports niches. Starting with running, Stance redesigned a sock to suit players as much as possible, they then teamed up with influencers in the sport. Once that worked, they moved onto cycling, basketball, golf and more.

 

Creating new versions of an existing product positioned for a specific audience could help you recruit new customers. This could be as simple as changing your positioning through marketing and website copy. Or you could start developing new versions of your existing products to better serve specific niches. Have you heard from customers who are part of a specific sport, hobby or profession? This could be a good place to start.

Luggage company, Away used an iconic golden era from the past to develop a new product range around. Co-founder Jen Rubiio explains “we were inspired by the nostalgia associated with some of our favourite iconic mountain towns, capturing the styles and colours found in retro postcards of places like Aspen or Verbier”. This theme for the new line inspired everything from the product design to the marketing material. The desire for these new products was super-charged by the fact that it was a limited edition; creating a feeling of urgency with customers to make the purchase or miss out.

 

Is there an important time-period or place that is special to your industry or brand? If you developed a new product based around this theme, what story could you tell with the product and marketing? Could it be used to break into new cohorts of the market or allow you to leverage a new set of influencers in your social media strategy?

Activewear brand, Outdoor voices decided to refresh a best selling favourite with their original hero product; the exercise dress. Doubling-down on the product that launched their company. But this time with new features requested by their customers, such as a phone pocket and inbuilt shorts. The activewear brand used the marketing campaign as an opportunity to celebrate their company values and customers

Direct to consumer brand, Caspa expanded their company vision from just mattresses to tackling a larger question: ‘how to have a good night sleep?’. They have since launched sleep-aiding products such as a humidity-fighting duvet and a smart bedside lamp. The broader company scope has allowed them to diversify from the saturated market they were in, whilst still leveraging their brand equity and existing customers.

Expanding your company vision by asking a new question could unlock fresh product ideas for your company. What if you weren’t just ’that kind of product’ business and instead tackled the larger area of your customer’s lives you currently just partially address. Using that line of thinking, what new products could you launch?

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