Brand Less Ordinary: UglyDrinks.com – Creating a brand on a mission

Marketing - The Art Of Being Seen

Why did you decide to launch your own brand?

It’s a question every business founder once answered with confidence. Usually when the business was fresh and full of vigour.

We don’t just fall into business. We spot an opportunity. An unfulfilled opportunity to make something that matters for the people we ‘get’.

And yet, where are the stories of why businesses exist? So many ‘about us’ pages are used to pitch how great we are. So many Linkedin profiles tell us the wonderful things we’re doing.

KEEPING IT SIMPLE

It took all of a minute for me to decide that UglyDrinks.com had a story I’d like to share with you. A team of two founders launching a brand with a story we can often relate to:

We were tired of buying products that promised to make us faster, stronger or more beautiful. Quite frankly, we still felt slow, weak and ugly. Everything was either unhealthy or boring, so we decided to launch our own brand.

A Water Brand Less OrdinaryThey officially launched last month (Jun 2015) taking shelf space at Selfridges.

Ugly Drinks don’t make a product, they make a brand. It’s a critical component that any business founder can learn from. Their product is water. We don’t ‘make’ water.

What we do, however, is create a brand where the product we offer matters.

It’s a pretty undifferentiated market, the water market. What’s available?

1.) We all have access to the freemium product. That’s courtesy of the tap.

2.) We then have the ‘grab it or I’ll die of thirst’ product. Where we reach for a bottle at the train station, or the convenience store. We buy the effect – the quenching of thirst, not the brand.

3.) Then there’s the few companies that are building brands.

A 10bn gallon industry in the US alone. A £2bn industry in the UK. Think Evian, Volvic, Perrier. As consumers, we’re brand aware, but are we brand conscious? I just buy water. It comes in a plastic bottle.

So. Ugly Drinks. What are they doing different?

Ugly Drinks - Flavoured Water BrandTheir water is subtly flavoured. Blackberry. Cucumber and Mint. Lemon and Ginger. Raspberry and Lime. Whetting the appetite? Thinking sweet tastes? They’re not. Just all natural flavours that offer something a little different to the run-of-the-mill bottles we’ve come to expect.

They are launching their bottles into an already tapped market. If you’ve tasted flavoured waters, however, like me, you’ve probably come away with a sickly sweet taste in the mouth that requires the purchase of an additional bottle of unflavoured water to rid.

In terms of the product itself, I can relate to the position Ugly are taking in the market. A more palatable, healthier option.

WHAT YOU BUY INTO WITH UGLY DRINKS

Ugly share their mission better than I can, “We’re not here to sell you the impossible dream; we just want you to embrace the incredible, awesome and sometimes ugly parts of LIFE.”

Founders, Joe and Hugh, looked at the market and concluded “Everything was either unhealthy or boring, so we decided to launch our own brand.”

Isn’t that why most businesses are launched? We look at what’s there and consider how we can create something better, more valued. So why do so few of us share the story of our business? Something our audience will buy into? Are we still so focused on getting people to buy from us, not into us?

Think about the UGLY proposition. A huge industry. We all drink water. Most of us have been trained to shift our daytime drinking habits from the soft drink can to the bottle of water. The healthy option.

Without the backing of the internet, how could you create a brand to compete in a market of this size and stature? 

With the internet you earn the opportunity to differentiate. Ugly’s proposition, like their product is simple. ‘Beautifully different’. It creates intrigue. The brand name creates intrigue. The message they distribute through social media creates intrigue. It’s shareable. Another critical component.

A concoction of intrigue, story, healthy option and accessibility will go a long way to create a resonating brand proposition. Nothing is watered down. A brand less ordinary.

Already, taking a look at the Ugly Drinks twitter feed they’re causing a stir in the market. Just one month after launch. Can you imagine sharing a picture of another brand of water straight from the shelf? ‘Here’s me and my bottle of Buxton?’. I think not.

We’re consumers. We sometimes crave different. In any market. Something fresh. Something that we can relate to. That something can be a bottle of water. Just as Ugly Drinks are proving.

  • You have to stand out from the crowd. Ugly’s brand name helps.
  • You have to offer a product with a twist. Ugly’s (current) select range of flavours helps.
  • You have to present a product that matters. Ugly’s story will resonate with the crowd that desire difference.

We’ve seen what can happen within the drinks market. Think Innocent. Think TeaPigs.

A lot of time those market shifts are fuelled by creators who believe they can change how we consume. One bottle at a time.

Most of all? Ugly are doing something fun. Look at the brand. Look at the website. In an industry reliant upon distribution and positioning to gain share, Ugly are throwing the rule book out. Again, they’re creating a brand that matters. The vehicle is the product.


Written By:
baf9974133182a27cc880cca71372aba?s=180&d=mm&r=g

Ian Rhodes

Twitter

First employee of an ecommerce startup back in 1998. I've been using building and growing ecommerce brands ever since (including my own). Get weekly growth lessons from my own work delivered to your inbox below.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *