🧠 Obvi x True Classic???

Hey there,

Welcome back to the 48th edition of Brandish,

Your guide to crafting an iconic brand.

Don’t know if you guys knew this,

But I recently attended SubSummit, a DTC conference in Dallas, Texas.

While I was there, 

I had the pleasure of speaking with Ben Yahaolm, the President of True Classic,

On the first-ever live episode of Chew On This Podcast. 

During our chat, we dug up some golden nuggets,

One of them being, expanding our DTC brand Obvi into retail,

Which, funny enough, happens to be what we’re talking about in this week's newsletter.

So kick back, get comfy,

Don’t forget your Brez,

And let's dive in.

Obviously we’re worldwide

Last August we gave Obvi a shot at entering one of the biggest retailers in the world.

Since then, Obvi has come a long way in the retail industry.

But before we get into the details on that,

I want to talk a little about how our brilliant Idea of going retail first started.

The year was 1974, mid-July, clear ski–– 

“Bro. you weren't even born yet in 1974 🤦‍♂️”

I was joking…Chiilll

Back to going retail.

Before getting into Walmart,

We started at a much smaller retailer - Vitamin Shoppe. 

Want to guess what happened there?

We completely got out shit rocked.

(Seriously, not even trying to be funny)

We only moved a handful of products, 

And even that’s a stretch…

It felt like a punch straight to the gut.

The first time our baby went retail, it got annihilated harder than we could’ve ever anticipated.

So what was next after miserably failing at a teeny-tiny retailer?

Taking a stab at the largest retailer in the world.

We had our sights set on Walmart.

The Obvious Game Plan

To succeed at Walmart we knew that we couldn’t repeat what we did the last time.

We had to evolve.

Because now that we were in the big leagues,

Failure was not an option.

There was a ton reasons why we got destroyed during our first go around,

But let’s just start with the first one.

We didn’t know what the f*ck we were doing

Since we’re DTC guys, we knew absolutely nothing about retail.

All we knew was the online world, 

Where we had control over every aspect of the customer experience.

Going into retail felt like trying to learn a new language for the first time.

Our products, which we thought would fly off the shelves, ended up gathering dust.

But after a whole lot of trial and error and a few facepalm moments,

We started to get the hang of it.

Now, here’s me trying to explain everything in this newsletter that won’t take you 4 hours to read 👇

Packaging is KING

When we first got into retail,

We pretty much took the same packaging design that we had on our DTC channels,

And stuck it on the shelves of Vitamin Shoppe.

Spoiler alert: It didn't work.

Our objective going into Walmart was to focus on packaging and make it OUTSTANDING on the shelves.

I made sure to have these three key elements on all of our packaging:

• Branding (obviously) 

• Making the value props POP and in clear view

• Using the remaining space for any other info I could add to make sure it sold on every front

One question you need to ask yourself before giving your packaging the green light is - 

If I knew nothing about the product at all,

Does it have enough on it to convince me to bring it home TODAY?

If the answer is no,

I would get back to the drawing board.

We’re just too good 

When Obvi first set foot into Walmart.

It was the best out there,

The most delicious flavors,

The highest quality ingredients,

Obvi was crushing in every category,

We were RICH!

Is what I’d like to say…

But it was a total FLOP.

Why???

We were so good. We were TOO GOOD.

What used to be our greatest strength ended up becoming our own worst enemy.

Even if we failed miserably, we still ended up learning super valuable lessons in the process,

Here they are:

1)  Sometimes less is more

When creating the formula,

Obviously, I thought the more the better.

So I started adding in things like

• Keratin

• Hyaluronic acid

• Biotin

• And all this other fun stuff

Little did I know that would completely backfire,

As it turned out, all Walmart shoppers really wanted was collagen.

2)  The Walmart Shopper vs. The DTC Shopper

Selling flavored Collagen to a Walmart Shopper,

Is like selling ice to an Eskimo,

They don’t really need it, or even really want it.

Since they’re already used to purchasing the unflavored, cheaper alternatives,

Flavored collagen isn’t something that they’ll be immediately jumping on,

Especially coming from a brand they don’t know.

3) Billionaires don’t shop at Walmart

I’m not saying that you have to be a billionaire to be able to afford Obvi,

Or that billionaires don’t shop at Walmart…Idk,

But you get the point.

Because I overformulated the water,

Our product was waaay too expensive,

And nobody that’s shopping at Walmart is trying to spend their life savings on collagen,

Especially if the one on the shelf right next to it is half the price.

Obvi’s OPPs

How could I write an entire newsletter about going retail If I didn't mention our biggest competitor on the field.

We’ll call them “Ivbo” 

Since Ibvo is a well-known brand backed by billions of dollars,

This means that one wrong move,

And they steal our customers,

So if we want to go toe to toe with this giant,

Anything other than perfection was not an option.

Obvi to Stardom

This August, we’ve decided to switch things up,

We’re replacing our flavored collagen powders with an unflavored option, which many people have been requesting.

I was able to dumb down the formula just enough to hit the price point we wanted,

Which is slightly lower than Ibvo’s, while still packing the same amount of collagen.

But that’s not all,

The real game changer was the SKYROCKETING success of our burn capsules at Walmart,

Where we’re currently leading the fat-burning category.

Not just at Walmart though—we’re seeing great results at Rite Aid and pretty much all the retailers we’ve gone into, 

And on top of all that, we’re still pushing Obvi out to even more retailers in the coming months.

Moral of the story?

Even though we had a rough start, it feels like we’re finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel for Obvi.

Wrapping it up

Okay, this newsletter was kind of a marathon,

And a bit of a storytime compared to the usual edition of Brandish,

But you can definitely learn from our failures and use them to avoid making the same mistakes.

And just because you made it this far, 

If you reply to this email with the correct number of times I used any variation of Obvi in this newsletter…

I’ll personally send you a surprise gift from Obvi for free (1 guess per person)

Thanks for listening to me yap about Obvi for the past few couple minutes.

And until next week,

Ankit