Image: Jiffy Lube California

Corporate Challenge: Your prices need to increase, and you want a strategy to grow your customer base.

Ironbound Strategy: Create value for customers by offering multiple small fringe benefits.

Ironbound Action: Houston based Jiffy Lube increased the price of their oil change service during a brand restructuring. Their new focus was to exclusively deliver fast and efficient services. To maintain price sensitive customers, Jiffy Lube added multiple low-cost fringe benefits, including a free car vacuum, free window washing service, upgraded waiting areas, and free Wi-Fi.  Creating value for customers always strengthens the brand image.  By offering even more customer value, Jiffy Lube was able to grow its customer base. 

Image: Jim Beam Distillery

Corporate Challenge: You want to grow your market share in a category flooded by too many competitors.

Ironbound Strategy: Create value for society by developing a brand experience for your product category.

Ironbound Action: In Kentucky, Jim Beam's Distillery is known as the Disney World of bourbon.  With no entry fees, anyone can walk the manicured grounds, and watch bourbon being made and aged.  By creating a brand experience, Jim Beam was able to invite new comers to the beverage category, and steal customers from other brands (who have lackluster factories). Jim Beam's factory concept rides on their position: come as a friend, leave as family.  In Hyannisport  on Cape Cod a small potato chip manufacturer puts a map to their warehouse on the back of every chip bag.  Strong brands don't want their factories to be another forgettable gray building that you drive past. They are turning them into brand experience destinations, and growing faster because of it.

Image: Goldenberg's Peanut Chews

Corporate Challenge: Brands are vanishing, and you want your company to thrive into the next century.
 
Ironbound Strategy: Creating value for customers is paramount for revenue growth.  Differentiate your product from your competitors.  Make the product better.
 
Ironbound Action: In 1917, a small Philadelphia candy shop was tasked by the U.S. Government to create ration bars for soldiers.  David Goldenberg covered peanuts and molasses in chocolate, as a treat for the soldiers.  After the war, soldiers returned to the U.S. and craved for their favorite ration bar.  Almost 100 years later, Goldenberg's Peanut Chews still uses the original simple recipe of peanuts, molasses, and dark chocolate in their candy bars.  By focusing on creating value, the company survived a century, and is a growing brand globally.  Give customers a little extra, and thrive.