Why Craft Brands are genuinely challenging the Goliaths

Is the age of the Goliath brand over?

Author Ben Zifkin’s book The Rise of the Craft Brand, set’s out a compelling case for why smaller, craft-focused brands are set to become a force in the changing world of commerce.

The world of brands and consumers has been dominated by global Goliaths with bulging portfolios of consumer brands and even bigger marketing budgets to promote them. For all but a few of those brands, the result has been generic and undifferentiated offerings as they scramble to chase sales growth and shareholder returns. But the ground has shifted beneath them. The way consumers think, feel and behave has changed and those changes are well suited to nimble brands built on authenticity and with a unique story to tell.

Think Gillette Vs The Dollar Shave Club. One, a mega brand with huge distribution, market share and awareness (all theirs to lose) – the other, an entrepreneurial upstart with loads of plucky personality and a keen understanding of their audience and the differentiated value they offer. With a march sharper focus than Gillette, The Dollar Shave Club is unlikely to grow the marketshare of their unwieldy competitor – but they don’t necessarily wish to, and neither do their customers want them to. Big corporations have mistaken omnipresence for powerful branding. Craft brands have realized they don’t have to be everywhere – just where their customers need them to be.

Read the full article here.