Image: Santa's Wonderland at Bass Pro Shops

Corporate Challenge: Using value creation to lower customer acquisition costs.

Ironbound Strategy: Customer acquisition costs naturally decline when a brand constantly creates value for their customers, employees, and society.

Ironbound Action: Missouri based Bass Pro Shops have an in-house Santa and Christmas display at all of their stores during the holiday season.  In an effort to create value for their customers, with a free photo with Santa, the retailer attracted a significant number of brand-new customers that did not want to wait in long lines at a mall for a photo with Santa.  Creating value for current customers has the beautiful side effect of attracting new customers, and lowering customer acquisition costs.  Creating value for customers is a surefire way of increasing revenue, and empowering the brand in society.

Image: ABinBev's Miller Lite

Corporate Challenge: Being relevant to the next generation of millennial consumers. 
 
Ironbound Strategy: Powerful Brands are able to become multi-generational by aligning their values with their stakeholders.  Companies are able to seamlessly integrate into our lives because they holistically create positive value for their employees, customers, and society. 
 
Ironbound Action: ABInBev is the leading global brewer and one of the world top 5 consumer product companies. For over 600 years, their brewing heritage has been to help bring people together for a better world.  Water is the number one ingredient (about 90-95%) in beer.  Respecting this valuable natural resource is part of the ABInBev mission, which is why they continue to set corporate social responsibility goals to improve water efficiency as well as ensures quality water access to the communities in which they operate.  At ABInBev, business isn’t just about rewarding investors by making and selling beer, it is also about respecting the resources and communities they operate in. 
 
The US beer market is approximately 111.4 billion.  Craft Brew sales were up 5% in 2017 accounting for about 12.7% of the beer market.  The growing Craft Brew industry employed over 500,000 people and generated $76.2 billion dollars to the US economy in 2017. 

Image: Reusable Disney Cup and Straw

​Corporate Challenge: Capitalizing on millennial preferences and trends.

Ironbound Strategy: Millennials have purchasing trends for brands that are committed to the environment.  Brands that actively create value for customers, employees, and society will thrive among the next largest purchasing demographic.

Ironbound Action: California based Walt Disney Company joined a niche trend to stop using single use plastic straws in the next 12 months across all Disney Parks, around the world.  Last year Disney Parks used 175 million straws, and 13 million stirrers. The trendsetting goal sparked interest by Starbucks, McDonalds, and Royal Caribbean to investigate alternatives to single use plastic straws, and may join the conservation effort over the next few years. Powerful brands set trends. When the trends are favorable to the environment, those powerful brands benefit from millennial attention and purchasing loyalty.
 
* In 2017, Disney Parks also reduced gas emissions by 41%, with a goal to eliminate greenhouse gases altogether.  Disney stock has risen 19.5% in the last 52-weeks.

Image: Turkey Hill Iced Tea

​Corporate Challenge: How to choose the next product or service offering.

Ironbound Strategy: Brand growth is a result of creating value for customers, employees, and society. Creating vertical integrations provides access to new customers that can grow your brand to record levels.

Ironbound Action: Pennsylvania based Turkey Hill is known for its iced teas, gas stations, and ice-creams.  Their brand’s rise to fame began when they opened gas stations to sell their branded products.  By vertically integrating into gas stations, demand for Turkey Hill products increased, and their branded products were successfully sold in grocery stores across the country. Turkey Hill now produces over 60 million gallons of iced tea a year. Small brands can quickly grow when their brand extensions create value for customers. There may be an opportunity for a new small brand to exponentially grow by extending their brand into charging stations, just like Turkey Hill did with gas stations.  
 
*The ready to drink tea industry is valued at $45.5B globally, and is expected to grow 22% by 2021.  In the US, 23% of Americans drink tea every day.

Image: Kettle Brand Chips

​​*The potato chip market is a $4.6 Billion marketspace, $500 Million in premium chips.  Last FY Kettle Brands had $163 Million in revenue.  

​Corporate Challenge: Using value-creation to entice customers away from competitors.

Ironbound Strategy:  In large product marketspaces, it may seem difficult to rapidly multiply market-share.  Brands that focus their efforts on creating value for customers, employees, and society, experience phenomenal growth from their value creating efforts.

Ironbound Action: Salem Oregon based Kettle Brand doubled their market share in 5 years, and then tripled it the following 5 years.  Kettle has maintained their old-fashioned all-natural production method, which keeps product costs high and margins much lower compared to their competitors who use chemically manufactured potato chips.  In order to generate growth, Kettle Brands dedicated themselves to creating value for society by reforming the chip making process to enhance the environment.  Kettle uses VW Beetles that run on recycled cooking oil, and offsets their energy with 100% renewable wind power.  Customers are influenced to purchase Kettle Brand chips because of their creative array of chip flavors, and knowing their purchase is positively impacting the environment.  In the next decade, millennials will become the largest purchasing segment in history.  Millennials are drawn to brands that create value for the environment, which is why Kettle Brand has doubled, and then tripled their market share.

Image: The Scale of Lady Justice

​Corporate Challenge: The secret behind powerful brands reducing their lawsuits.

Ironbound Strategy: The best brands in the world create overwhelming value for  customers, employees, and society. Do those great brands face fewer lawsuits? Yes.

Ironbound Action: A University of Pennsylvania study discovered that a company’s prestige affects outcomes in liability lawsuits. Over the last few years this blog has been sharing insights on how creating value for stakeholders increases a brand’s reputation, prestige, and top-line success. The Penn study referred to the added prestige as the “halo effect” that protects the brand in the judicial system. Meanwhile, America’s most hated firms find themselves in never-ending, high-cost, and high-frequency lawsuits.  Creating value for stakeholders creates a halo effect that gives brands a clear advantage in legal pursuits.

Image: Boring Company

​Corporate Challenge: Finding new and creative ways to create value for society, before acquiring your first customer.

Ironbound Strategy: Customers are always attracted to brands that create value for their community. Positioning products to create society value attracts customers who are setting the trends for the next generation.

Ironbound Action: In 2016 Elon Musk created the Boring Company, set to build an underground highway system to increase the efficiency of travel. The byproducts of building tunnels are clay, limestone, and rocks – the ingredients of bricks. The Boring Company declared that the byproducts of boring tunnels will be used to make bricks for low income housing. When creating a new venture or start-up, figuring out how to use externalities to society’s advantage will increase your new venture’s embracement by society, and ensure future success.

Image: Wawa

​Corporate Challenge: Defining a long term vision for a company, and the brand's relationship with its surrounding community.

Ironbound Strategy: Great brands never stop creating value for customers, employees, and society. Contributing to charity is a long-term brand building strategy.

Ironbound Action: Pennsylvania based Wawa has a mission to serve their communities. Wawa ($9.1B in revenue across 750 stores) believes in service to customers with good food and service to neighbors with meaningful philanthropy. Recently, Wawa’s charitable foundation was given an award for 30 years of partnership with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The accolade allowed Wawa to promote their brand, and raise more awareness for LLS. Millennials want to support brands that care about their community. Having a long term relationship with non-profits is a societal signal that a brand cares about their customers and their society.

Image: Tito's Homemade Vodka

​Corporate Challenge:When statistics show a downward trend, how are some brands growing so fast in that same market space?

Ironbound Strategy: The fastest growing brands are ceaselessly creating value for their customers, employees, and society; and having fun in the process.

Ironbound Action: Texas based Tito’s Handmade Vodka was established to give profits back to communities. In order to explain Tito’s exponential growth, Tito said “If you can do nice things for people, it’s amazing what comes back to you”. A recent GlobalData survey found that 54% of millennials are cutting back on alcohol. Millennials are very picky about the alcohol they consume. Netherland based Ketel One has seen its sales of vodka plummet in the US. However, Vodka sales overall are booming in the US, and the #1 brand is Tito’s, especially among millennials. Just last year Tito’s sponsored over 6,000 charity events as a way to create value for society. The brand has grown so large, Tito’s is asking non-profits to reach out to Tito’s for open donations. Creating value for society generates so much sales for some brands, they can’t keep up with their astronomical growth. 

Image: Apple Classroom

Corporate Challenge: Opening up the marketspace by creating new segments of customers.

Ironbound Strategy: When a brand dedicates their energy to creating value for  customers, employees, and society, the brand will grow. As a result, employees will find new segments of customers, often it creates value for society.

Ironbound Action: California based Apple created a new language of code called Swift in 2014. By 2017 they had developed school curriculums to teach the coding language to students, for free. Now Apple has created a coding learning curriculum for deaf and blind students, and will roll out the program nationwide.  Deaf and Blind students are some of the most underserved students in the world. By creating opportunities for underserved communities, brands can build loyalty among new segments of customers, and can secure them as loyal customers for generations.