Town and Country Surf is a locally owned surf shop in Hawaii that aims to provide customers a fun shopping experience with a variety of clothing brands and accessories. The document outlines checkpoints and strategies from Blue Ocean Strategy and Zag for Town and Country Surf to differentiate itself from competitors and strengthen its brand, such as focusing on its local ownership, expanding clothing selections while removing unrelated products like dog clothes, and developing a compelling brand identity and customer experience.

1. Zaging For a Blue Ocean Town & Country Surf Jamie Park Mark Lalic Com 459

4. The Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create Grid Example: Town and Country Description: It helps companies have a clear and better drive to creating Blue Oceans. The grid helps companies with four immediate benefits. 1. It pushes them to push for differentiation to break the value-cost trade-off. 2. Stops companies from over engineering products. 3 Easy to understand by managers 4. Because it is a difficult it drives companies to scrutinize every factor in the industry. Mark Lalic Com 459 source: Kim, W.C., Mauborgne, R. (2005). Blue Ocean Strategy. Boston, Ma: Harvard Business School Press Create Reduce Overly chaotic customer service Worker abuse Raise Variety of clothing More brand selection Eliminate Dog clothes

6. What do you do? State your purpose In 12 words or less. Decide what your purpose is, beyond selling a product or service. What business are you in? . Retail business Provide customers with a fun shopping experience and a vast array of brand choices. Providing customers with a fun and memorable shopping experience. Checkpoint 2 :

7. What’s your vision? What do you want to accomplish in 5, 10, or 20 years How can you make the vision palpable and exciting. Paint a vivid picture of your future. Test it on a real piece of communication. Go back and refine it further. Use it repeatedly to Illustrate the direction of your business. The vision of T&C surf is to continue to grow and still remain Hawaii’s premier Locally owned surf shop. It would also be want to become a successful store in the mainland as well. Checkpoint 3

8. . Checkpoint 4 Surfing, clothing, accessories, and the continuing buying impulses from our target demographic. Make a list of the trends that will power your success T&C continues to have its major market from the 14 – 30 year olds. Checkpoint 4: What wave are you riding? Yes, clothing, accessories, certain designer wear, etc. Can you ride more than one trend at a time? Extremely powerful. How powerful Is it? Surf culture will never die out especially in Hawaii and it will continue to change as time goes by. What trend is powering your Business?

9. Checkpoint 5: What shares the Brandscape? Who else competes in your category? Who comes first, second, and third In customers minds? Find out how your brand ranks with Customers. Design a strategy to become number one or two. Or become the first mover in a new Category. Companies should define itself by being unique not admirable.

10. . Checkpoint 6: Because success is achieved with hard work and customer loyalty. WHY Since the early 1970’s WHEN In the state of Hawaii. WHERE T&C surf has remained true to its local people. WHO By investing time and effort to avoid being bought out by mainland companies. HOW Town and Country is the only surf shop that is still locally owned in Hawaii. WHAT

11. Checkpoint 7: What should you add or subtract? What existing brand elements are under- mining your onliness? What new brand element could strengthen your onliness? How do the remaining elements align with your vision? Make a list of all current and planned offerings and brand elements. Decide which offerings to keep, sacrifice, or add. Be brutal –It’s better to err on the side of Sacrifice. ADD: More clothing selection. Subtract: Dog clothes

12. Checkpoint 8: Who loves you? Who makes up your Brand community? How can you manage the “gives and gets” so everyone’s happy? Diagram your Brand’s ecosystem. Decide how each Participant will both contribute and benefit. The customers are what makes up the brand community at T&C. The company has to make it a priority to continue to keep up with the latest trends so that customers will continue to purchase at the high prices.

13. Checkpoint 9: Who’s the enemy? Which competitor can you paint as the bad guy? Tell your customers what you’re not, in no uncertain terms. HIC: Hawaiian Island Creations

14. Checkpoint 10 : Town and country surf, it is easy to remember, pronounce, and is currently being used for Brand extension. Is your name helping or hurting the brand? If its hurting, is there an opportunity to change it? If its too late to change it, is there a way to work around it? Is it suitable for brand play? Does it have creative “legs”? Is it easy to spell and pronounce? Can it be saved as a URL? How is easy will it be to legally defend?

15. Checkpoint 11: How do you explain Yourself? What’s the one true statement you can make about your brand? Craft a trueline that tells why your brand is compelling. Avoid any Commas or “ands”. Turn you trueline into a tagline to use with Customers. T&C surf Live Like This

16. Checkpoint 12: How do you spread the word? How can you unpack your name, trueline, and tagline? How can you enroll brand Advocates through Messaging? How can you align all your commincations with you zag? Make sure your messaging Is as different as your Brand. Only compete at the touchpoints where you Can win.

17. Checkpoint 13: How do people Engage with you? What are you selling and how are you selling it? Which touchpoints will let you compete in White space? Map you value propositon against those of your Competitors. See which competitive Areas you can avoid entirely. Discover customer Touchpoints where you’ll Be unopposed.

18. Checkpoint 14: What do they Experience? How will customers learn about you? How can you “enroll” them in you brand? Who will be your Competition at each Touchpoint? Where should you put your marketing resources? Map the customer Journey from non – Awareness to full Enrollment. Bet your resources on the experiences that zag.

19. Checkpoint 15: How do you earn their loyalty? How can you help customers build barriers to competition? How can you avoid creating a “disloyalty program”? Start by being loyal to customers. Don’t make new customers feel punished or excluded. Give loyal customers the tools to introduce new customers.

20. Checkpoint 16: How do you extend your Success? How do you keep growing The brand year after year? Choose between a house of brands and a branded House. Add extensions that Reinforce the brands meaning. Avoid extensions that unfocus the brand’s meaning. Avoid extensions that bring you into competition with leaders.

21. Checkpoint 17: How do you protect your portfolio? How can the whole be worth more than the parts? How can you stay focused under short – term profit pressure? Avoid c-sickness- contagion, confusion, Contradiction, and Complexity. Understand the long – term effects of brand extensions.