[Cache - #115]
Moving sucks.
I could end today’s blogpost right there – type not another word – and we would all go away nodding our heads, just slightly comforted by the kinship of having shared our collective painful memories.
But I have a duty to tell you about a brand that makes moving suck a modicum less. It is Frogbox, a company that rents moving boxes made of green plastic. Go to their website, and by pointing and clicking, select the size of your current household to be told how many Frogboxes you will likely need. I was able to order boxes just 24 hours before I needed them.
They arrive on time, delivered by a courteous guy in a Frogbox van and uniform, who will, days after your move, go to your new place to pick them up. Total cost for a one-bedroom apartment = $79 + tax for 25 boxes.
I wouldn’t have thought that a simple plastic box could make a material difference to my moving experience, but it did. They are large and although light, are heavy-duty enough to hold as much weight as you can possibly squeeze in them – totally different from a traditional cardboard box.
They stack perfectly and high, have handles by which to carry, can be easily slid along the floor and maybe best of all, require absolutely no tape – the plastic lid simply folds closed, and can be instantly opened again at any time.
A Remark-able Brand Experience and Story
The upshot of the brand experience is that it’s very, very easy, with a number of mutually-reinforcing attributes that combine to tell a highly remark-able (worthy of word-of-mouth and memorable) brand story. The Frogbox positioning statement, From one pad to another, exemplifies the message of ease by creating a promise (completely delivered on) that one can move from their old home to their new one with all the difficulty of a hop.
The frog- and moving-related double entendre of From one pad to another serves the further purpose of making the name Frogbox more meaningful; consider what a wasted opportunity it would be if Frogbox’s statement was something like, I don’t know, A moving moving experience. Not a horrible positioning statement in and of itself, but having nothing to do whatsoever with frogs, it wastes the opportunity to reinforce the meaning of the brand name.
Speaking of frogs, the brand name was chosen for more than just the opportunity to use green boxes and look eco-friendly. Based on the reusability of its boxes, the company has a bona fide green mission: To minimize the stress of moving on our customers and the Earth - and gives 1% of gross revenues to frog habitat preservation. Frogs, Frogbox tells us, are disappearing faster than the dinosaurs (which sounds rather slow, so that’s a message they might want to rethink).
It all adds up to a network effect (see Cache #94), in which each element of the brand – its name, its positioning statement, its mission etc. – becomes more valuable when other on-theme elements are added.
Ribbiting stuff.
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Brand: It Ain’t the Logo is Number One on the Globe and Mail’s list of business bestsellers for the month of March.
In case you missed it: my short interview on CBC Radio One about IKEA’s horse meat problem.
Also in case you missed it: My BNN interview re. Lance Armstrong’s brand (starts at the 3:30 mark, after the ad).
