What's in a name?
I was talking with an entrepreneur today about messaging and his frustration with having a great product that some customers are struggling to understand reminded me of some kicks I built.
When I was the creative director for footwear at AND 1, Ballers were walking around in soccer slides with socks on before and after games, to the mall, to the B-B-Q and to school. Not a good look, not that functional and your socks get ruined. We wanted to create a slip-on shoe that could be worn before and after games and generally enter the casual athletic market. We built the shoe you see here and called it “the slide.”Comfortable, affordable and way better looking than soccer slides with socks.
I took it up to 155th and 8th to test it. Everyone hated it. I took it to West 4th, they hated it. At playgrounds and malls across the country, everyone hated “the slide.” We tested different colors and fabrics and nothing worked. Kids said we should stick to lace-ups or make a soccer slide.
The shoe was a failed experiment until our audience helped us with the messaging.
On my last testing stop before heading back to Asia to finalize the line I was at the Northline Mall in Houston, TX and didn’t notice the kid holding The Slide until the argument started. 30ish high school kids, boys and girls, surrounded the shoes and 29 of them were laughing at the one holding the shoe. He argued with them with no success until he said, “No, stupid. It’s not to hoop-in yo, it’s to-chill-in.” The other kids were silent. Then, one by one, they agreed. In this group “the slide” was the best shoe.
I delayed my trip to Asia by a week and went back to all the other places we tested product, but this time I did not bring “The Slide” I brought the “Tochillin.” It tested off the charts and we included it to the line. Within 12 months we had a $50M Tochillin business with multiple styles and the original Tochillin Low went on to sell over a million pairs in 3 years.
The name of a product or service or how it is positioned through marketing and customer messaging can determine its success or failure. Don’t assume to know your audience, listen to the market to discover the right message. If you have an example of messaging changes that drove significant changes in consumer acceptance I would love to read it in the comments. If you own a pair of ToChillin’s, post it here or on twitter with the #todayskicks tag.
#1 by Spencer Fry on December 4, 2009 - 8:05 am
This is a great story. Have you come across any similar stories for Web companies? I've only heard about successful name changes from direct marketing companies. They change their name after their brand gets tarnished.
#2 by DavidWeinfeld on December 4, 2009 - 11:30 am
Great real-life example of how important it is to seek consumer feedback during new product development. Not only did you ask consumers critical questions but you took the opportunity to observe how interactions with, and conversations about, the shoe.
These insights proved invaluable in proving the core of your hypothesis – that basketball players would seize upon a fashionable and functional alternative to wearing soccer slides after games. Once you framed the product with the right marketing messaging and story, which spoke directly to your proven hypothesis, success was almost inevitable.
#3 by Ryan Graves on December 4, 2009 - 12:04 pm
Very very cool. Have you found that future customer feedback is easier or more difficult with online products or physical products?
#4 by phineasb on December 4, 2009 - 12:20 pm
Ryan-
It's a good question. I think with physical products you are forced to
look for future customer feedback because once you ship it, it can't
be changed. With online products the iterative cycles can be much
faster and can happen with live customers, rather than future customers.
In general, I think physical goods developers could learn a lot from
the ways that online product/service developers analyze customer
reaction to their efforts and digital goods developers can learn a lot
from the product development cycles that physical goods manufacturer
have institutionalized.
When you abstract the physical goods process, you have a very close
parallel to the MVP process being promoted by Eric Reis et al.
Phin Barnes
Principal, First Round Capital
215.327.0849
#5 by Ryan Graves on December 4, 2009 - 1:03 pm
Nice. I'm a very strict believer is cust dev and a reader of Ries.
May I shoot you an email sometime, I'd like to ask a few offline q's about
finding product dev, customer dev opportunities…
graves.ryan[at]gmail.com
Cheers,
Ryan
#6 by phineasb on December 4, 2009 - 2:05 pm
Sure. Phin@firstround.com
Phineas BarnesPrincipal, First Round Capital215.327.0849
phin@firstround.com
Bio/Blog/Twitter
#7 by MikeDuda on December 4, 2009 - 3:51 pm
Amen. Alleluia.
Build it and they won't necessarily come. Know who the they is, what motivates them and get key insights and laucnh accordingly.
If only there was a firm to help startups do that, Phin. ; )
#8 by phineasb on December 4, 2009 - 4:41 pm
Seems like blue ocean to me
Phineas BarnesPrincipal, First Round Capital215.327.0849
phin@firstround.com
Bio/Blog/Twitter
#9 by Robleh on December 16, 2009 - 12:52 pm
Thanks for sharing this example…great insights. I think you touched on a couple of key points that made me think. One being that the main difference between the two names was that one was clearly functional (Slide…easy to put on…slip-on) while the other was emotional (Chill…as in relaxin', chillin' out w/friends). The second thing is noticed is that the name + positioning should = your value proposition….it should illustrate/personify what you're about…and the only way to find out if you've got a match is to get intimate with your customers.
p.s. It's an honour to meet a sneakerhead VC…never thought I would see that
@spencer – I've come across a few web companies that changed their names but not specifically their positioning. I'm tip-of-the-tongue-syndrome'ing right now. One name change that comes to mind is Backupify.com (which use to be called lifestreambackup – not as brandable).
#10 by Robleh on December 16, 2009 - 7:52 pm
Thanks for sharing this example…great insights. I think you touched on a couple of key points that made me think. One being that the main difference between the two names was that one was clearly functional (Slide…easy to put on…slip-on) while the other was emotional (Chill…as in relaxin', chillin' out w/friends). The second thing is noticed is that the name + positioning should = your value proposition….it should illustrate/personify what you're about…and the only way to find out if you've got a match is to get intimate with your customers.
p.s. It's an honour to meet a sneakerhead VC…never thought I would see that
@spencer – I've come across a few web companies that changed their names but not specifically their positioning. I'm tip-of-the-tongue-syndrome'ing right now. One name change that comes to mind is Backupify.com (which use to be called lifestreambackup – not as brandable).