Rebranding the ColoradoBiz 2015 Top Manufacturer

April 18, 2016  David C. Roth

Completely rebranding a high-profile product line that has tremendous customer and retailer loyalty is a juggernaut effort. What anchors our approach is our conviction that a brand is not a logo or a shouting of features and benefits. It’s a gut feeling you want others to have about what you stand for, how you relate to them and the impact you can have on the quality of their experiences. In other words, what makes your company and its products imperative?

My partner, Rick Bacher and I are called in to brand and rebrand many types of companies. A sausage manufacturer was a first

Hot dogs, whether tucked in a bun at the ballpark or served on a stick at the state fair, are a great American summertime tradition. Fierce regional loyalties still shape the hot dog business: Many of the dogs produced in this country are made by local, often family-owned businesses, and flavors and styles vary widely from place to place. From North Carolina's peppery red skinless franks to Oregon's salami-like beef-and-pork dogs, from garlicky weiners made in Pennsylvania from a 1939 recipe to Coney Island's famously snappy franks, we love them all.

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Eric Gutknecht, CEO of Continental Sausage, makers of  CharcutNuvo products, was working as a management consultant in Dallas in 1998 when he fell into his intense passion. "I was bored because there isn't anything to do in Texas," he explains. So Gutknecht taught himself to swim on a whim, and entered a sprint triathlon. 

The entrepreneur came out of his first 500-meter swim with folks who'd started two waves behind him. His girlfriend at the time -- now his wife and the company's CFO, Jessica Gutknecht -- was worried he'd drowned. "I was dead last in my age group, but caught up a little on the bike ride," Gutknecht says. He was hardly deterred by his performance; in fact, he