How I Helped an Iconic Brand Break Through Market Stagnation (And What Product Founders Can Learn)
When I joined the team as Brand Building Manager for Brawny®, I used strategic framework I now use with small businesses to transform a struggling legacy brand. Here's what happened.
The Challenge That Landed on My Desk
When I joined the team at Georgia-Pacific as Brand Building Manager for Brawny®, the brand was in serious trouble. Sales were stagnating, retail buyers were threatening to pull the brand from shelves, and customers were defaulting to the "safe" choice—other paper towel competitors they'd trusted for years.
I knew this wasn't just a product problem or a budget problem. This was a positioning problem. The brand was relying on being iconic, but it wasn't directly speaking to its customer. It felt unrelatable. It was time to change the tune and speak directly to the consumer making the purchase.
Why Having a Better Product Isn't Enough
As part of the refresh, Brawny® was about to launch something revolutionary: the first 3-ply paper towel in years. A genuine innovation that would be a game-changer for the industry. But here's what most founders get wrong—having a better product doesn't automatically equal better sales.
I've seen this mistake countless times, from enterprise brands to solo founders. The innovation was just the starting point. The real work was in repositioning the entire brand to match what modern consumers actually wanted.
How to Target the Right Consumer
Instead of traditional demographic targeting, it was crucial for the team to deep dive into the psychographics of the consumer: What are her values, her needs, her pain points? This allowed us to shift the messaging from pure utility to authenticity and resilience.
This messaging shift changed everything:
Old messaging: "Strong paper towels for tough messes"
New messaging I developed: "Brawny empowers you to take on whatever daily life throws your way"
What I tell my small business clients: Your product features matter, but your customer's identity matters more. Are you speaking to who they are, or just what they need?
The Three-Pillar Approach to Standing Out Against Competitors
1. Make It Impossible to Ignore on the Shelf
I worked closely with the packaging design team to create a modern, eye-catching design that clearly communicated premium positioning. When your product looks like it belongs in the same category as the market leader, customers start seeing it differently.
2. Create Content That Champions Performance
I worked with the creative team to develop a distinctive creative platform that showcased actual benefits in ways that felt relevant to our target customer's daily life. Real situations, real results—no generic marketing fluff.
3. Build an Omni-Channel Strategy
I worked with the media team to design a comprehensive media strategy with consistent messaging across every touchpoint—from social media to retail displays. No confused messaging, no mixed signals.
The Results We Delivered
The transformation delivered incredible results both in testing and at launch:
15% above benchmark for purchase intent when testing the content and packaging I helped develop
Major retail wins I helped secure: Walmart and Target placement when the product was previously only available in grocery stores
2 billion earned impressions at launch from the integrated strategy
Awarded Best Brand Refresh of 1H 2025 by Marketing Drive
More than numbers, we fundamentally changed how consumers saw the brand—from outdated legacy product to modern, values-driven choice.
How I Apply This Same Framework with Small Businesses
You might be thinking, "That's impressive for a big brand with a big budget, but what about my business?" Here's the truth: This strategy scales.
This is the same framework I now use with product-based founders through my Brand Builder and Growth Engine packages. The principles that transformed Brawny's market positioning work whether you're launching nationally or just starting to sell on Shopify.
The three questions from my framework:
Do you really know your ideal customer? Not demographics—psychographics. What do they value? What drives their decisions?
Is your messaging about features or feelings? Features get forgotten. Feelings drive purchases.
Are you showing up consistently? One great Instagram post won't cut it. Your customer needs to see you everywhere they look.
Why My Approach Works: Strategic Clarity Beats Big Budgets
The biggest lesson from this transformation? Strategic clarity beats big spending every time.
This wasn't about throwing money at ads (though we had the budget). It was about the strategic framework: understanding exactly who we were talking to, crafting a message that resonated, and showing up consistently with that message.
After working with product-based businesses since then, I can tell you: Every brand has the potential for this kind of breakthrough. The question isn't whether you have the right product—it's whether you have the right strategy.
Your Next Steps
Ready to apply my proven framework to your business?
Audit your current messaging—does it speak to features or values?
Map out who your ideal customer really is (beyond basic demographics)
Look at your competitor's positioning—where's your opportunity to differentiate?
This is exactly what I help founders do through my strategic packages. Whether you need the full Growth Engine roadmap or want to start with a Brand Strategy Day, I bring the same enterprise-level thinking that transformed Brawny's market position to growing product businesses.
Because here's what I know after leading transformations at both the enterprise level and with scrappy startups: The strategy that drives results is the same. Only the scale changes.
Ready to apply enterprise-level strategy to your product business? I help founders develop the same strategic clarity that drove this brand transformation. From brand positioning to go-to-market strategy, let's build your breakthrough. Book your strategy session →
