A Cheesehead Look at Branding, Part 2

In my last post, I discussed how value could be created by making relatively small innovations to existing products or processes.    That’s what happened with the invention of Colby cheese in Colby, Wisconsin.  But in other cases, value is created by recognizing a use for something that already exists – and then driving that value proposition home.

That’s what happened in a small town less than 100 miles southeast of Colby back in 1925. During World War One, the paper company called Cellucotton Products Company in Neenah, Wisconsin created  a material it called “Cheesecloth UGG” for use in gas mask filters.  After the war, it sold the material for use as small disposable towels to remove makeup .  The firm called the towels Kleenex, and sales were so-so.  But in 1925, the company’s head researcher convinced the head marketer that Kleenex could be positioned a different way.

You can imagine the conversation:  “What people really need are disposable handkerchiefs.  Everyone gets colds and sniffles, and no one wants to carry around a germ-laden piece of cloth in their pocket.”  Apparently the marketing department was convinced, and by the ‘30s, Kleenex had firmly become the disposable handkerchief.

From the beginning, the company did the right things to build brand value.  It defined a unique value proposition.  It protected the name with a trademark.  It developed a logo and advertising  to support the concept.

Today the Kleenex trademark is owned by the Kimberly-Clark Corporation.  Products under the Kleenex brand are manufactured in 30 countries and are sold in over 170.  The mark itself has become so well known that it runs the danger of becoming a generic term.

The Kleenex history illustrates two important attributes of any successful brand:  it needs to be both relevant to the customers (people suffer from colds) and differentiated (unlike linen, these handkerchiefs were cheap enough to be thrown away after one use, and in doing so, customer would need to buy more). The brand isn’t created by building the product or by naming it.  It’s created by recognizing, focusing on, and communicating the value it brings to its customers.

A Cheesehead Look at Branding

My family didn’t have many brushes with fame or fortune.  But in the ‘50s, my parents leased the Steinwand farm in Central Wisconsin.  Never heard of it?  Well, it was home to an innovative marketer named Joseph Steinwand.  In 1874, he invented a cheese and named it after the neighboring town of Colby.

Chances are you’ve had Colby cheese many times in your life.  Some say it is the only true American cheese, invented by an American and not modeled after any European cheese.  Today, it can be purchased in any supermarket in the country.

So why do I call Joseph Steinwand an innovative marketer?  Because he realized small changes could add major value to an existing product and in the process create a whole new market segment.  He used a basic recipe for making a cheddar cheese but added a washed-curd step that replaces the whey of cheese with water and results in a very mild flavor.  With the addition of some yellow food color, he had a cheese that was like no other.  And Americans loved it.

By the turn of the last century, merchants in the state of Wisconsin advertised that they sold “genuine Steinwand Colby Cheese.”    Its popularity spread across the country.  A new brand was formed.

Unfortunately, marketers also need to protect their innovation.  (This is a lesson I learned myself as a marketer who once worked with the fabled Xerox Palo Alto Research Center .  The Xerox Star workstation introduced innovations like icons, the desktop interface, the mouse, page description languages and laser printers – only to see others profit from the concepts). 

While I’d like to report that today the Steinwand heirs rake in a fortune from their continued interest in Colby cheese and the millions of pounds that are sold each year, that’s not the case.  In fact, the original site of the Colby cheese factory where it all started sits in ruins.

The lesson is not just that branding is about creating value from innovation; it is also about recognizing and protecting that value.

Next time, I will talk about a different Wisconsin branding innovation that did protect and profit from its innovation – Kleenex.