If you can truly find a difference for your brand, you should pursue it. But the difference needs to be meaningful to your audience. And you need to recognise it won’t last. Differentiation is an idea that has become controversial in recent years. Acknowledging that, here are some different ways to think about differentiation.
The battle lines for differentiation vs distinctiveness are well drawn
On one side, the acolytes of Porter, Trout and Blue Ocean Strategy who argue that the only brands that stand a chance are those that bring a crowd-stopping Unique Selling Proposition to market. On the other, Ehrenberg-Ross and others who argue that distinctiveness is what gets a brand noticed and bought.
While marketers often use the terms interchangeably, the terms themselves reference different sources of advantage: “Differentiation is about features of a product or service that differentiate a brand in the eyes of the customer … Distinctiveness is all about making your brand easily identified by customers. Brand names, logos, jingles, slogans and house styles contribute to this.”
Arguments for and against go back and forth in the marketing press. For example, Mark Ritson claims differentiation should be about difference and not uniqueness and therefore differentiation can be “relative” to what other brands are doing within the category. Take a position, own it and focus your energies on beating your brand drum on that basis.
In fact, Ritson’s solution seems to be that marketers should refrain from taking sides, embrace both and have them work together.
Nigel Hollis agrees: “Marketers need to strive to make their brands both different and distinctive: different in order to justify a price premium over close alternatives; distinctive in order to trigger pre-existing, positive feelings during search and shopping. The two qualities are both highly desirable but, sadly, most brands are lacking in both.”
Five different ways to think about differentiation
In looking to accentuate the gap between these options, perhaps both sides have resorted to a narrow definition of what each approach means. For example, rather than isolating difference as a product-centric feature, we would suggest there are at least five ways to source and derive difference:
- The different you invent – this is the groundbreaking innovation that stratospherically separates what you offer from everything else around it. This is the most common understanding of differentiation but it is also the hardest to achieve, and impossible to hold.
- The different you find – this is the difference you create by applying “The Medici Effect”. It equates to the blending of discordant thoughts to create a whole new approach.
- The different you frame – this is how you frame what you offer in new ways by introducing new stories, new experiences and new contexts for customers that amaze them. Licensing is an example of how to do this. A familiar brand, seen in a new setting, changes how that brand is perceived. Think Ferrari and roller-coasters.
- The different you seek – for some brands in some sectors, a purpose-driven approach may offer them an ESG-related advantage based around the unrelenting pursuit of a new good in the world.
- The different you embrace – particularly for brands looking to democratise, there is difference to be had in introducing people to your market that haven’t been part of that market before and making them feel comfortable in ways that the sector and other brands never have and wouldn’t dare.
Of course, no brand can just stop there. Having sourced an opportunity for difference, the brand must express that in ways that get noticed. A brand without a reason to buy is a commodity. But equally, a brand without a strong presence, identity and communications is a pass-by.
Another difference that often gets missed
The judgment in our view comes in knowing precisely how different a brand needs to be at any given point in order to achieve its short and long-term goals. And equally in knowing what must remain constant and recognised in order for the brand to make the most of all the investment that has been made to date.
That’s the other point that seems to have been muddled in this debate. Differentiation and distinctiveness are often presented as static options. In point of fact, even Mark Ritson’s suggestion of “relative” may not go far enough. Instead, we should perhaps take a cue from the strategic playbook and pursue emergent differentiation and/or adaptive distinctiveness – where brands dynamically respond to competitors and market conditions in order to keep being noticed, remembered and preferred.
So many brands say or think they are different. And yet their customer value proposition (if they even have one) is bland and forgettable. It takes hard questions to find difference, however fleeting, and it starts with asking questions that perceive normal as a vulnerability.
Motivations for differentiation
The last time you sought to differentiate your brand:
- Did you redefine what they get?
- Did you shift what they feel?
- Did you redirect what they strive for?
- Did you destroy what they assume?
If you are going to look for differentiation, we suggest you focus on the real different you want to achieve. That starts with truthfully asking yourselves as a brand what’s the biggest obstacle you need to shift? Here are five common vulnerabilities:
- Anonymity – buyers have no idea who you are and no way of navigating the so-called choice set
- Boredom/Disinterest – nothing exciting happens in the sector, so buyers don’t care what they buy
- Lack of knowledge/assumption – they don’t see any value in what they are buying from you, so they default to price alone
- Complexity – everything seems really hard, so people make arbitrary and resentful decisions about which brand to go for
- Disbelief – they don’t trust you long enough to listen, so your brand counts for nothing anyway.
As for the differentiation vs distinctiveness debate, surely this is a classic example of ideas talking past each other. Differentiation focuses on strategy. Distinctiveness pivots on brand management and execution. In the words of the Frank Sinatra classic, “You can’t have one without the other.”
Are you ready to have a different conversation?
Differentiation is one of many conversations in building a confident brand. If you want to assess the difference you could own, we offer rapid-resolution strategy sessions to help senior teams systematically find out what makes their brands valuable. More on how we can help here.
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Photo by Herbert Goetsch on Unsplash