You can find out more about Bryan Rahn and join in the discussion over on his blog at www.lifeintheblue.com.

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http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2009/company-profile.html?id=200900350

Number 35 on the Inc 500 List – Diapers.com. I think this company could relate to the branding conversations we have been having.  Before you spend much time on the site, you should just go to the home page and write down your very first impressions: Diapers.com

• What does this site provide?
• Who is their target audience?
• What is the UVP of this site?

When I first saw the site on the Inc list, I thought, “I remember seeing them around online before. Do they really do that much business only selling diapers? But within just a few seconds of being on the site I can tell they provide all kinds of baby gear. The site feels very “soft” and friendly. Inviting and welcoming. From what I can gather, the target market of diapers.com is people with not a lot of spare time who are willing to pay well above Wal Mart prices for relatively simple baby gear. It seems to me like their UVP is that they can get you items fast. It is necessary that their items ship quickly, and they arrive within one day. Shipping is free over $49 or else it is $10.
So, I would pose the following questions –

1. Is diapers.com brandable?
2. Have they successfully branded themselves?
3. How does this relate to branding any of our sites?

In my opinion, yes, they have a brandable name. It doesn’t matter that they sell way more than diapers, but diapers.com is enough to let you know this is a site for baby gear. I think people buy from diapers.com because it is easy. We think that is a reason why a lot of people work with us, to avoid the red tape. It doesn’t really matter that they don’t just sell diapers. If people buy because of benefits, then the only real benefit of diapers.com is that they do not have to go to the store. This is similar to the benefit we provide, that they don’t have to go to a local lender, who may be less experienced.

It seems that diapers.com figured out that what people want the  most is to be able to avoid having to go to the store to buy baby gear, even at lower prices. We need to figure out what people want the most from us.

Do they want:

• specialists?
• ease?
• quickness?
• lowest cost?

A lot of people have avoided answering these questions due to the famous ‘boxes’ where we can try to catch all different kinds of people who want different things. But I think for actually ‘branding’ we have to have 1 simple answer to the question “Why do people want to use us?”  We have to find what the single thing potential buyers are most hung up, nervous or apprehensive about, and then be the answer to that problem. Much like diapers.com is the answer to people who don’t want to go to the store problem.