Objective: Position Todi Shoes to be the “Apres Athletic Footwear” product category.

Most often to own a product category, the brand has to invent the market category itself. Red Bull is a case in point for the “energy drink” category. Reebok launched its brand with “aerobics footwear”. Lululemon Athletica is identifiable as a “yoga-inspired” brand in athletic apparel.

We are positioning the Todi brand to own the product category “Apres Athletic Footwear” for aggressive, hard charging athletes. It’s the brand you wear in to and out of the locker room.

Just as Lululemon’s “yogo-inspired” apparel product category was unclaimed, the “Apres Athletic Footwear” product category is not owned by a competitive brand. It is a market niche for the Todi brand to stake its claim and, more importantly, own in the minds of today’s athletes.

The practice is not without precedence. For example, Rand Sperry invented the computer; IBM didn’t. But IBM entered the market, raised awareness, and became identified as another label for computers, ultimately claiming the category. The closest success of an athlete shoe being known as an Après Athletic shoe is exclusively with soccer players. This two-decade long success is the Adidas Samba shoe and the Adidas Soccer Flip Flop.

Our go-to-market strategy to build the Todi brand is to narrow the focus and to actually invent, define and claim the “Apres Athletic Footwear” product category. This strongly positions Todi to be the brand name people equate to the product category. [e.g., Kleenex, FedEx, J&J; Baby Shampoo, Coke, Xerox, IBM and iPod].

To accomplish this, we must initially focus on a word or concept Todi can truly own in our athlete-consumers’ minds. Specifically, this word is what we want to come to mind when people utter the Todi brand. Moreover, it is the reason our market will buy Todi over our competitors. [For example, for a long time, Volvo equaled "safety" in the minds of car buyers. And safety was the reason people bought Volvos.]

Owning a word

In our case, we can invent and own a new product category for Todi.

Aggressive Athlete™

If we set the standard, a shoe can only be called Todi if an Aggressive Athlete is wearing it.

What’s more, if everything we do with our product and our brand messaging vehemently pays off the concept of “Todi. Exclusively for Aggressive Athletes”, then over time, the Aggressive attribute will become an inherent part of the Todi identity and therefore will be shortened to simply Athlete.

Hence: Todi = Athlete

A prime example of this is when FedEx invented the category, “guaranteed overnight delivery” and delivered on its promise. The result now is that the brand name FedEx is synonymous with “Overnight.”

A laser focus today will allow us to build meaning behind the brand itself and the brand strategy will allow us to effectively extend the Todi brand equities into new product categories. An adjacent and valuable brand extension from footwear is into apparel, “Apres Athletic” apparel of course.

At this point, it is clear we are launching more than a footwear company and expanding into an apparel company. We are creating a valuable brand™ a global brand aimed at owning a valuable concept of “I am a aggressive athlete” in the minds of our consumers.

Our go-to-market strategy aggressively focuses on building this valuable perception around the Todi brand. Initially, we are implementing a combination of guerilla tactics, Internet PR, social media, street teams and “exclusivity tactics” to effectively bring our brand message to market.

Our team is fired up to own this category and deliver success on behalf of the Todi brand.