Branding Strategy Comes First
In 2015, at Inter Pet Tokyo held at Tokyo Big Sight, I encountered the Thai brand “Devon & Drew” for the first time.
Their booth, located within the Thai Pavilion, had a distinctly different atmosphere from the others around it.
The design, the brand worldview, and the quality of the products immediately stood out.
It was not simply a “pet products” brand. It already existed as a complete lifestyle brand.
What impressed me most was not the sense of price competition, but the strong presence of the brand itself.
At that time, I was visiting the exhibition as a senior fellow of a Japanese company, and I strongly recommended on the spot that we should work with this brand.
However, the company remained focused on its existing low-priced product lines imported from China, prioritizing price competition over brand building.
As a result, I left the company, established my own business, and flew directly to Bangkok to begin discussions with the Devon & Drew team.
Discussing the Brand Rather Than MOQ
At that time, a listed Japanese company was also approaching Devon & Drew.
Their discussions mainly centered around MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) and volume discounts.
On the other hand, what we discussed was:
- What kind of brand should this be?
- At what price range should it position itself in the market?
- What type of customers should support the brand?
In other words, we were discussing the brand itself.
I actually brought Devon & Drew products back to Japan and compared them with products sold at stores such as Journal Standard and SHIPS.
As a result, I felt that Devon & Drew products were not inferior at all. In fact, in terms of both quality and design, they were even better.
Despite this, their prices were significantly lower than comparable products in the Japanese market.
Therefore, I proposed to the Devon & Drew team that they should double their retail prices.
Of course, this was not simply about raising prices.
I believed that pricing needed to be redesigned together with brand positioning, sales channels, visual presentation, and overall brand image.
Eventually, the team accepted this proposal and reconsidered their pricing strategy for the Japanese market.
Price Is Not Determined Only by Cost
Price is not determined simply by material costs and labor.
Ultimately, it is the market and customers who decide whether a price is appropriate.
For example, premium Japanese sake is sometimes sold at twice the price of ordinary sake, but that does not necessarily mean the production cost is also twice as high.
What customers are paying for often includes:
- Trust in quality
- Brand background
- Design
- Story
- Worldview
- Emotional satisfaction of ownership
These are all forms of “additional value.”
The important question is:
“Do customers truly feel the product is worth the price?”
Naturally, quality remains essential.
A branding strategy without quality cannot survive for long.
That is why, in the case of Devon & Drew, we remained extremely committed to maintaining superior quality and design.
Additional Value Creates a Brand
Additional value in branding is not simply about adding more functions.
It is about creating a reason why customers want to own the product.
Sometimes that value comes from the designer’s background, the history of the brand, the family story behind it, or even the worldview surrounding the products themselves.
The British-inspired sensibility of Devon Andrew, the family background, the visual imagery, and the atmosphere created by the brand —
all of these elements contributed to the attractiveness of the products.
Brand strategy is not simply about selling products.
It is about designing what kind of value the brand should represent in the market.