I have a heath nuisance that might force me use a cane, and I don’t just want any old cane so I have been on the Internet.  I found the one I want for starters, but I don’t want to buy a personal thing like a cane online, so I finally decided to call the parent company out in Estes Park to see where I might find one of his Sumac Root Walking canes.  Well, it’s a small company, so George answered the phone.  He’s been in business for 25 years having sold his first company to AT&T.  He explained that he had about 2500 retailers across the country.

Georgia went through retailers in GA.  He knew exactly who had what, and finally gave me four numbers within three hours of my house that he knew for certain should have the exact cane I was looking for, the Atlanta Zoo, a hiking shop in Helen, Ga, another in Newnan, Ga, and one over in Rome, Georgia.

If I go to giant retailer, I can rarely find an employee who knows what they have, much less the specific name to ask for in the next aisle.

George, on the other hand told me about each of the four stores, something about the owners, their phone numbers, and what they ordered last time.  What an absolute pleasure.  Finally he offered to send me three or four canes, and let me send back the ones I did not want.  How nice it was to be treated like an adult.

Meet Vic Firth.  Every heard of him or his company?  If you play the drums you probably have. Vic Firth drumsticks are the undisputed Killer Brand in the drumstick category.

Vic himself, now in his 70′s, was for years the chief timpani player for the Boston Symphony.  Never satisfied completely with his drumsticks, he began to experiment and make his own.   Soon, he was making sticks for snares, quads, bass drums, etc.  Then one day the real magic happened.

Vic dropped a lapful of snare sticks on a cement floor one day by mistake, and realised as they rattled on the concrete that they made different sounds.  Therein was born the idea of tuned drum sticks, a pair of sticks with exactly the same percussive characteristics and tuning, the Perfect Pair, his invention and his trademark.

Sounds suspiciously like “compelling differentiation” to me.  Since the introduction of the Perfect Pair for snares, quads, every kind of drum you can imagine, Vic Firth has contantly grown until now it is both a Killer Brand and a dominant brand among high school, college, drum corps, rock, symphony and all serious drummers.

It would be hard to find a better example of a true Killer Brand than Vic Firth’s Perfect Pair drumsticks.   How would you like to have a 62% share of your category?

The manager is dressed like a physician and carries a stethoscope as do the waitresses who are all dressed as nurses.  Since the clientele is almost all male of course, the nurses outfits are more interesting than found in a hospital.

This is a perfect brand construct.  The name, Heart Attack Grill tells you exactly what they serve and allows you to self-select yourself as a target customer or not.  And nothing on the menu is off-strategy with everything in the restaurant itself perfectly aligned to the expection and the name.

It was built on the expecation that if you owned one and used it, you distinguished yourself as a fashionable person who was not overcome by fashion.  It delivered style with simplicity, and was meant to sustain its style from year to year without change.   According to the brand records there were new market conditions that led Coco Chanel to develop the bag.  The post WW II “cocktail” party had arrived, particularly among the wealthy and influential.  Chanel herself did not like cramming everything into a small evening bag and trying to hold it in her hands at the same time that she negotiated a martini in a crowd.  She thought women needed to be able to wear their bag on their arm and keep their hands free for touch, greeting, etc.  So she added the chain handle.  She always insisted that women secretly adored “chains,” but many who knew here thought that the chain was a personal throwback to her fascination with janitorial keys on a chain from the orphanage where she was raised.

She created a bag that would go with everything and disappear so that women did not compete via their handbags, and one that was functional, including a secret compartment where a love note or phone number could be discretely stuffed.

The quilted pattern she copied from the silk jackets worn by the boys at the racetrack.  She loved the horses and adored the neatness of the little quilted jackets worn there.  Above all she was creating a “neat” bag.

The Chanel Bag stood out without standing out.  The crossed C’s logo was not added until the 80′s, so this was not a brand identity “graphic” success as some of today’s designer inputs seek.  It stood on its on.  The Chanel Bag has consistently demanded a premium price that women in the know will still pay or wish that they could.

It was a :120-180 sec spot for the National Guard built around the idea of the Citizen Soldier.  It mixed the history of the National Guard, America’s first organized militia which I learn from their website was formed 371 years ago, with today’s National Guard.  The footage was edited back and forth in a way that made you feel proud.  You wanted to rise up out of your seat. The whole spot started with the band 3 Doors Down and all footage was laid over the band’s song Citizen Soldier.  It was riviting.  All two or three minutes.

Very good job, National Guard.

I tried to find what ad agency created this work and could not tell.  If anyone knows, please share.

Stok brand black coffee shot is a shot of caffeine (40g equal to a shot of expresso) delivered via an aceptic package like a dairy creamer.  In fact, it is from White Wave Foods which markets the International Dairy Creamers brand.

Stok (the logotype has a long sign over the “o” which I cannot do on my keyboard) is currently sold at convenience stores, truck stops and coffee shops.  I tried one on its own, and could easily have downed a half dozen.  Package warns, “Limit 2/day” contains high caffeine.

It was only a dime.  WOW!  When’s the last time you paid only a dime for anything?

After learning more, I realized that it is meant to be added to a cup of coffee to boost the caffeine.  In many places, it is free with a cup of coffee. I think that this brand has focus, alignment, and linkage, all of the components of a true Killer Brand.  Kudo’s to the company and to the people involved.

Stave Puzzles are known within their target audience of puzzle junkies as the highest quality, most interesting and most difficult puzzles of all times. In this case, Stave Puzzles represent an excellent example of a “difference in degree” so great that it has become a “difference in kind.”

Stave Puzzles are hand-crafted of cherry wood so they never really wear out. The company was named for the founders, Steve and Dave. Steve now runs the company with the title of Chief Tormentor, and is known for designing new kinds of puzzle shapes that are fiendishly difficult. He is the originator of the false edge piece which looks like it should be on the outside of the puzzle but is not. They even have puzzles with spaces between the pieces (kind of like lace). How would you like to try to solve and assemble one of these?

The puzzle boxes themselves show no photo or likeness of the finished puzzle so you figure it out as you go. One year they put out a new puzzle on April’s Fool that actually had no solution even though a solver could get close. It ended up infuriating the target audience, proving that even the creator of a Killer Brand can go wrong every now and then.

How much does this craftmanship and challenge buy them? Well, Stave Puzzles start at $125 and range up to $500. Plus virtually every owner has more than one. And every owner expects them to be priceless collector’s items one day in the future. And the company is healthier than ever. This difference in degree has helped them stave off the competition for 33 years. (Sorry, I could not help that!)

How do you differentiate in such a crowded category?

If you drive up I95 between Ft. Lauderdale and Boca Raton you will see a billboard for an investment firm with a differentiated focus. “We specialize in Municipal Bonds.” Here is a firm that has taken a stand. And in the right area for their target audience.

If you lived in this area, you might very well be retired, and tax free municipal bonds would be very interesting to you. There is no doubt in my mind that you might call this firm. I don’t remember having ever seen another investment firm that drove a stake in the ground and focused on anything, much less muni’s.

If you have the same reaction as I did, then you can see the sheer value of FOCUS, the first principle of the KILLER BRAND.

You have probably done the same.  Now magine your surprise if you were driving west on Woolbright Road in Boynton Beach, Florida, and encountered an exact replica of a New York hot dog stand on the side of the road in the grass about a mile west of I95. Sure enough it’s an authentic stand with an authentic owner. He got tired of the hassle of New York, analyzed that many of his regular customers over the years had moved to Florida, and followed them down, bringing his stand with him.

He does a robust business now, not quite as robust as in Manhattan, but he claims his hot dogs stay hot longer. You will find them to be just as good as in Manhattan.

This was an unusual example of geographic expansion following the migration of your target audience. I wonder if it is an isolated event. Anyone know of anywhere else one can find a New York hot dog stand outside of New York?