Creating new market (sub)categories (3 tasks)

“There are three tasks required  for creating a new category / subcategory…

1. A firm must manage that subcategory so that it wins the subcategory battle. Subcategory energy, appeal and associations need to be conceived and communicated. Customers need to be knowledgeable about the subcategory and motivated to first make the decision to buy into the subcategory and then the brand, not the other way around. 
   
2. A firm must also win the brand relevance battle. When the subcategory is the focus of a buying decision, the goal is to have your brand be the only one that is visible and credible with respect to delivering “must haves.” If your brand is not the only one, it should be the most relevant.
   
   
3. The subcategory creator/exemplar brands need to build barriers to prevent competitors from gaining visibility and credibility, and thus relevance in the new subcategory. Creating a subcategory will not be valuable if competitors can become relevant or even appear to be relevant to the new subcategory. The barrier need not be technological. It can be anything that inhibits competitors such as scale, brand equity, value guarantee, customer loyalty and more.”

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