Know-How Exchange : Other

First, some definitions

1. Great products or services –products or services which dominate in their category or created a new category. They would be recognizable as successes because of market share or very rapid growth.
2. Advertising – to be specific, this refers specifically to activities which involve buying media.

I am currently identifying a number of companies that have successful products but have not spent much or anything on advertising. to understand what they are doing differently. For example, Starbucks ran its first TV ad over the holidays last year - how were they growing before then? Whole Foods doesn’t advertise as far as I can tell. Zappos does some print and search advertising, but allocates a chunk of what would have been ad budget, to custom service. What about Zipcar? Or Craigslist? Or Method Products? Or 37Signals Basecamp? Google didn’t spend their way to visibility either.

The goal is to have people think about how they allocate resources to activities like product development or customer services (i.e. making the experience better for their customers) versus various forms of advertising and promotion. And then identify some common themes among companies who choose to spend their ad dollars elsewhere.

Do you have examples of companies or products that have grown without (or without very much, relative to their competitors) advertising spending?