DÒDÒ: A Masterclass in Building a Distinctive Consumer Brand 💎
This isn't theory. This is a practical case study of how I instinctively applied Eric Ryan's billion dollar CPG framework in real-time to DÒDÒ (a brand born from an April Fool's joke) to stand out in one of the most commoditised, competitive categories in consumer goods: spirits.
On April 1st 2024, I posted what I thought was a playful prank: Marmalade Collective was launching a plantain-infused brandy. The internet had other plans. Within hours, the post went viral—tens of thousands of engagements, hundreds of DMs and one recurring question: "Where can I buy this?"
Just come across a plantain infused brandy called DÒDÒ and I’m so curious as to how it tastes. pic.twitter.com/J9N3NTZVGT
— Dami (@mslolaraexo) April 2, 2024
Six months later, DÒDÒ wasn't a joke anymore. It was a real product. A premium plantain-infused rum. Handcrafted in Scotland. Selling out its first batch of 250 bottles with zero marketing spend. And now, with Batch 002 on the market and a £100K seed round closed, DÒDÒ is proving that even in a £1.17 billion UK rum market dominated by centuries-old brands and tired colonial imagery, there's space for something genuinely new.
But here's the truth: DÒDÒ's success isn't an accident. It's a case study.
Why I created this masterclass
When I first learned about Eric Ryan's framework, via the video below, for building distinctive consumer brands in crowded marketplaces, I had a moment of recognition. Almost all of the principles from Eric Ryan's framework was evident in how we built DÒDÒ.