Make Your Brand Blossom

This week I have flowers on my mind. It is planting season here in the Colorado Rocky Mountains ... a bit later than most areas of the country. My husband and I live at 8,100 feet near Pikes Peak and the log home that our five acres is built on is frequented by deer, rabbits, foxes, coyotes and wild turkeys. In addition, all sorts of birds from owls to bluebirds to magpies and hummingbirds flit about. For many, where we live is too remote. For us, it is our sanctuary. While we love the splash of color that annuals and hanging baskets add to our flower beds, over the years we have reluctantly succumbed to making more and more of our landscaping bloom without us. Older and wiser than when we first moved here, we have learned to give into the wildlife who view our flowers as food, the early summer hailstorms that can decimate all our hard work in minutes and our often-on-the-road travel schedules that do not allow much time for all the things that plants crave on a near daily basis: weeding, deadheading, transplanting, watering, fertilizing and tending. So it was with great delight that I learned about Proven Winners Shrubs in Country Living magazine as I flew home from my last business trip. This company captured my attention with a colorful full-page ad that casually highlighted one word over a gorgeous Hydrangea plant: OVERACHIEVER. This particular plant is called the Invincibelle® Spirit, and is positioned as one that requires minimal care, supplies abundant blooms, and is easy to grow. This is our kind of shrub. As a matter of fact, the entire line of Proven Winners feels like it was created just for us. Since being enchanted with that ad, I researched this brand further and learned that Proven Winners Shrubs’s tagline, “A better garden starts with a better plant” informs of all its offerings and helped focus the company’s 2013 consumer campaign. In this clever and effective promotion, Proven Winners’ top 10 shrubs are personified with titles such as: Prodigy, Humdinger, Workhorse, Charmer and even Survivalist (one we are particularly attracted to, given our above mentioned conditions!). Here's how Proven Winners describes its unique point of differentiation: Proven Winners partners with the top plant breeders around the world to ensure our varieties are vigorous, healthy, vibrant, and unique. Once a Proven Winners plant makes it to your house, you'll fall in love. Proven Winners plants are: Easy to grow and care for Covered with blooms Bright and colorful All-season bloomers Disease free Trialed and tested Meanwhile, these full page ads and product adjectives tell Proven Winners' story succinctly and engagingly and direct customers to their site for more information and a free gardening guide. This spot-on, brand enhancing campaign makes its brand blossom. Using this example as a creative springboard for your brand, how can Proven Winners inspire you and your team to "storysell" your products in a new, unusual and humdinger way? Here are a few inspirational seeds to prompt internal conversations amongst your brand builders and product developers: Can you easily identify your company's top 10 "proven winners" and what your customers love about them? What playful titles might you assign them? What specific problems do these products solve? How do these products erase or alleviate these pain points in your customers' lives? In what areas of your competitive landscape do they help your brand overachieve? Take some time this season to cultivate new ways to make your brand blossom.

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Make Your Brand Blossom

Andrea Syverson

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Andrea Syverson