The first brand to introduce direct-to-consumer CBD oil
Insight: CBD oil is on the rise in 2019 as a vice to help calm anxiety, pain and promote peaceful sleep, without the high that comes from THC. Since around 2017, searches for the term "CBD oil" have risen drastically to about 4 times the amount now in 2019 as shown through Google Trends. The term "anxiety" has also experienced an increase in the amount of times searched on Google, and when paired together with "CBD oil for anxiety" there is an even higher correlation and increase in searches than when used as separate terms. Anxiety is affecting more people in the United States than ever before because of social media and our social and political climate. Along with having too much information at our finger tips at all times. While these mental issues arise, we are more inclined to turn to natural wellness remedies rather than relying on prescribed help.
Brand Idea: With these insights, Feals, a brand new company, tackles a sweet spot into an untapped market. There is this new miracle oil out and while its true that many companies are jumping on the CBD bandwagon, its hard to convince an older adult audience that it is safe and non psychoactive. Since they are adopting a direct-to-consumer marketing strategy, it helps promote trust within the company and will help them grow and change with the customers requests as CBD oil becomes more popular and recognized. This marketing strategy is very relevant in this generation, and is already highly successful amongst popular brands like Casper, Dollar Shave Club, Glossier and the Honest Company to name a few. In order to differentiate from the other hundreds of CBD oil products showing up in the market Feals decided to couple the two trends. They also found that different strengths of CBD oil affects everyone differently so they offer a tester kit with 3 varying strengths you can try before committing to the pricey full-size bottle. Other CBD oil brands don't offer any sort of testers, which is shocking considering how new and 'mystical' of a product this is.
Target: From what I saw from the testimonial stories on the Feals website, it looks like they are targeting an age range of about 25-60. Which is pretty wide, but for the younger range it focuses on helping anxiety and sleep, and for the older range it focuses on helping pain and inflammation. Most of the time, a large target can be detrimental to the success of a company, like the famous quote goes, "if you're for everyone you're for no-one". However, for this instance it can be pretty beneficial since everyone can find a different use for the same oil. This is also where direct-to-consumer marketing comes into play because it makes CBD oil easier to get because of e-commerce and promotes more education and discussion on the topic/what works best for your individual needs. Its harder to convince an older crowd to take part in this trend since they are convinced it'll make them high, but if they see the testimonials they might be more encouraged to give it a try. I've already seen my parents accidentally buy multiple CBD products so it can't be hard.
Strengths: CBD oil and direct-to-consumer, e-commerce marketing is in! People are trusting brands with a growing social media presence more and more, even as a new brand, Feals already has 11k+ followers and a gorgeous feed to follow. CBD also doesn't have any extremely good or bad reviews out yet so those innovators out there are still interested in trying it out for themselves until hopefully the early adopters and early majority follow.
Weaknesses: Is CBD oil just a fad? Does it actually work? Creating a company based around a health fad that isn't fully tried and tested yet is risky. The future of Feals can definitely go one of two ways as we watch where the CBD oil trend goes. They also have to make sure that the oil is providing benefits to at least 80-90% of there customers or else people won't be inclined to spend upwards of $100-300 on a faulty product.
Bottom line, I think that this is a good risk to take and I am excited to see the future of CBD oil. As long as they make sure to have a plan-B, Feals is innovating the way we buy and experience CBD.
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