It's Happening
Start Up Curated has been publishing since January 2015.
I have been overseeing this publication since October 2020. Since then I have been sending out a weekly "briefing" (or at least attempting to send it weekly...).The content is identical to what I send with my other newsletter, "Marketing BS", but the formatting takes me an hour or two (so sometimes I don't spend the extra time - which is when subscribers here don't get the weekly briefing...). I have been planning to consolidate the two lists for a while, but kept putting it off.
But today is the day.
I have decided to change the format of both newsletters. Instead of a (long) weekly briefing, I am going to try and send a short, more frequent, post focused on "one thing" that I think is interesting and worth sharing. I will try and limit it to things that I believe I have a unique take on, so that there is more value than just curation. I have included today's post below.
But starting tomorrow you will be receiving these same messages from a new host domain. Nothing will change other than where it is sent from. If you don't see it at 6am ET tomorrow, check your spam folders, and make sure you mark it as something you want in your inbox (or if you don't, just unsubscribe. It's okay. My feelings will not be hurt).
Thanks for bearing with me through the change over. Onto the briefing!
Athletic Brewing is a non-alcoholic beer manufacturer. They just launched a new coffee-based product with added protein, targeting the pre-workout market. Two lessons from this:
This is an example of targeting an “occasion”. The goal of marketing usually starts with obtaining awareness of a product. But awareness is not enough. In order for a product to be “selected” it needs to be CONSIDERED, and then win in the consideration set. Athletic Brewing is trying to to create consideration for their (weird) product for the “pre-workout occasion”. Good luck with that.
The target audience of any product is much bigger than most managers give it credit for. Gatorade “targets” athletes, but if it were only purchased by endurance athletes it would be a niche product. Instead its real audience is “people who want to feel good about drinking a sugary beverage”. If they are smart Athletic Brewing is using the “pre-workout occasion” to create awareness of their product, but the team internally understands they need to go after a much bigger market.
That’s it! I promised I would keep it short.
Keep it simple (and short),
Edward