Not your typical branding development story

By Ken Gasque

Advertise And Make Something Happen
The advertising itself might be the differentiator.

Set your goal and write your plan
Lube Cube was a small b2b company that manufactured and sold above-ground storage tanks to the petroleum industry. Nothing was exciting about the product. It was a steel tank housed in a concrete cube. However, it was a niche market, and our client wanted to increase his market share to become the US’s largest and most profitable above-ground storage tank company. That was a BHAG (“Big Hairy Audacious Goal”). The owner of Lube Cube asked us to help and we liked the challenge.

I was skeptical at first because the owner was an accountant. Accountants aren’t usually good prospects for branding and advertising because they don’t believe in it. This is my perception. And it still is but see what Bob Evans says about advertising.

How do you create advertising that meets BHAGs?

Do your homework (know your audience)
We began by researching the industry and the competition. We visited trade shows and talked with the competition. We studied their sales strategies and listened to their benefits. We collected their literature and photographed their booths. We asked the competition what they could tell us about Lube Cube. The competitors were regional companies. Their intel wasn’t very good. They knew very little about any of their competition other than the names of the owners.

We probed our client and their clients to determine what Lube Cube did better than the rest. There wasn’t a big differentiation. The customers said Lube Cube was honest, made a good product, and was readily available, and reliable. But they said the same thing about all of Lube Cube’s competitors.

We noticed that none of the competitors used advertising effectively. They had no strategy. They had no consistency. They had no differentiation. They had no ‘big idea.’ Their advertising consisted of small bland ads that they ran sporadically. They seemed to be talking to themselves (this happens frequently). We saw an opportunity to create a huge impact and differentiate Lube Cube at the same time with their advertising.

We did something outrageous
Our strategy was to create an ad campaign that would position Lube Cube as the leader in the industry. There were six competitors, some larger and some smaller than Lube Cube. Several trade publications reached the market.

Outrageous advertising doesn’t have to be shocking
We purchased full-page color ads in all of the trade publications. Our ad included a map of the US with our five locations (four of these locations were nothing more than self-storage units used to house Lube Cube products to be ready for delivery in the market within a day). We created a brand. We positioned Lube Cube to appear to be a large national company.

They call it shock and awe—“military doctrine based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy’s perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.”

A full-page color ad doesn’t seem outrageous unless you perceive advertising to be very expensive and you don’t focus on your goals and objectives. What the competition saw was a very large company with a big advertising budget coming into their market. Some of them panicked.

Our advertising was meaningful and consistent
Sales did not pick up from the first or second ad but three weeks after the first ad ran two of Lube Cube’s competitors called and offered their companies for sale. Within three months Lube Cube had a 50% market share. Let me repeat that… Within three months Lube Cube had a 50% market share!

We continued the ad campaign for six years. Lube Cube bought out all of its competition. Then Lube Cube received an offer from a major player in the petroleum industry that was too good to turn down.

Lube Cube was a great client. They had a goal—they wanted to dominate their industry. They had a realistic budget. They were committed and never waivered in their commitment. They didn’t want aggressive advertising they wanted market share. Aggressive advertising was the tool we recommended. They were not afraid to engage. Their advertising paid off and created their brand. They achieved their objective of selling the company.

Effective advertising has 5 basic requirements:
1. Know your audience
2. Set a goal
3. Budget to accomplish your goal
4. Brand your product. Create a message that communicates your difference (if you don’t have a difference—make one). In Lube Cube’s case, they designed a campaign of full-page ads that positioned them as the dominant brand in the market.
5. Don’t quit

Advertise. It pays.

 

About Ken Gasque

Ken Gasque is a brand developer and designer. Ken consults with small and large companies in need of a new brand, or to refurbish their existing brand. To learn more, visit Gasque.com