Value of brands - article from Business Week

This if right in line from my previous post. Note this particular excerpt.

What Does Your Brand Stand For?
Ask yourself, what does my brand stand for? Try to answer it in one sentence without using the name of the product your company sells. Legendary entrepreneur Richard Branson was once asked, "What does Virgin stand for?" He could have answered "a great music store" or "a great airline," but instead he answered with one word—"fun." By focusing on fun from his earliest days as an entrepreneur, Branson's vision allowed him the flexibility to move beyond a single product. Today the Virgin empire spans some 360 companies. Branson instinctively knew how to differentiate his brand. Branson was able to adapt, change, and take advantage of new opportunities because he sold an experience.

Notice that having an aspirational brand core purpose and values can open thinking up to many business opportunities outside of your current industry.

How to Sell More Than a Product (full article)
In a coffee showdown with McDonald's, Starbucks' tried—and—true strategy has a lesson for entrepreneurs: Don't sell products. Sell an "experience"
By Carmine Gallo

Who packaged my cheese?

My wife recently purchased a great new brand of packaged, pre-sliced cheese. The brand name is Dofino and the parent company is Arla. It looks very upscale - a white waxed paper like packaging with nice design on it. It was hard to open though- no obvious "tear here" marking. And it is resealable, which you wouldn't know the first time you opened one. The resealable strip doesn't work very well so I found myself putting the entire package in a larger zip lock bag for storage after use. Another interesting point about the packaging, you can't see the cheese inside, just the name "Gouda" on the front with a picture of a a very tantalizing deli sandwich that obviously has a slice of that particular kind of cheese on it. So you can see I've pointed out a few criticism's with the packaging.

It makes me wonder if they just designed the packaging to look more upscale/prestige and didn't really think about how well the packaging functioned for the end consumer. My wife told me that she picked up a couple packages of this brand because they were half price. Ahhh - apparently the packaging isn't helping sales. Unless you are a cheese fanatic, you might have to see the cheese and not not recognize by name the difference between Havarti and Gouda.

I did go the the website by the way and after taking a few minutes to find the cheese we bought, see that the packaging looks like its been updated on the Havarti but not the Gouda. Arla, your cheese is very good by the way. I wonder what it cost you to repackage it all though, both in terms of hard cost and also in terms of new customers who tried it and won't buy again for the reasons I mentioned here.