Small Company, Big Brand

How small outfits build their brands into household names

by Jeffrey Gangemi

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On Aug. 12, a group of 12 fans of the Web browser Mozilla Firefox, which competes with Microsoft's (MSFT) Internet Explorer, used two-by-fours and rope to hollow out a 30,000-square-foot impression of the brand's logo in an oat field outside of Salem, Ore. The handmade crop circle wasn't the first time Mozilla diehards had displayed their support for the brand publicly. In December, 2004, a group raised enough cash to buy a two-page ad in The New York Times to thank those who had contributed to the launch of the beloved browser.

But neither of these stunts was orchestrated by a PR firm or in-house marketing guru. What's more, the more than 10,000 programmers who are constantly tweaking the open-source coding and performing quality controls on the Firefox browser are volunteers, not employees. And the 60,000 Web sites that have linked to Mozilla's site to encourage people to download the browser receive no compensation.

It's this growing community that has allowed Mozilla, a small company with about 60 full-time employees, to compete with juggernauts like Microsoft. "One of our distinguishing characteristics is that we're a small organization competing on a large playing field," says Asa Dotzler, community coordinator for Mozilla. He says the company owes its success to its users and their "passion for Firefox."

The branding success of companies like Mozilla, Pom Wonderful, Craigslist, and others show that you don't have to be big for your brand to be big. By building a dedicated group of users or customers, small companies can create formidable brand power.

BUSINESS FIRST.

How do they do it? When it comes to brand building, many of the same rules apply across industries. Chief among them is a continual dialogue with customers. "We're an online bulletin board or classifieds site, but largely speaking, what you see is a summation of what users have asked for over the years," says Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, which boasts about 5 billion page views per month.

The other key to building a popular brand is having a product or service that defines its category. McIlhenny's Tabasco Sauce is a prime example. In 1868, when it launched the product, hot sauce wasn't a brand category—Tabasco created it. Now it's a booming business with more than 300 manufacturers (see BusinessWeek.com, 8/7/06, "Who Wants $300 Hot Sauce?"). "What makes these companies great is that there's a business there first, before there's a brand," says Martyn Tipping, president of brand consultancy Tipping Sprung, based in New York.

History shows that a great idea never made it without good management and skilled handling. "There are lots of good ideas that are poorly executed. It's more than a good idea; it's the execution of the brand you represent," says Scott Griffith, president and CEO of car-sharing service Zipcar. After opening its service in Boston, New York, and Washington, Griffith's company took two years to document and distill its "operating model and brand recipe" before expanding into Toronto, San Francisco, and Chicago this year.

KEY BUILDING BLOCKS.

Even if a company's product or service isn't groundbreaking in itself, it's important to find a means of differentiation. Take Travelzoo (TZOO). The company has pushed the services of sites like Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia a step further by testing, then compiling the best travel deals from more than 500 advertisers.

Users click through to the provider's site when they spot a deal they like. Travelzoo, along with its newsletters, has 10 million subscribers, largely due to its quality control. The site's "About Travelzoo" page states: "Your confidence in the credibility of what we're offering you is the heart and soul of our business.