In marketing, being different is not enough to be successful.
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 9:27 am
Marketing strategy based on differentiation is one of the basic concepts that we all know. When we define a strategy, one of our first objectives is to differentiate ourselves from the competition. Deep down, we feel that our company is unique and we want the market to perceive this in order to attract its attention and sell.
This huge simplification of the strategic philippines girls telegram approaches of most companies is both a reality and a huge paradox, because in reality, for our target audience, all brands seem the same.
If we exchanged our brand logos, in 9 out of 10 cases our customers wouldn't notice.
How? No, I haven't gone crazy. The data is a bit old, but it's as true as life itself: according to the Meaningful Brands study carried out by Havas Group in 2017, 91% of Spaniards (74% worldwide) think that brands are dispensable .
What happened between the two approaches? We went to market with the clear objective of differentiating ourselves and we ended up being like all the other brands in our sector.
Deep down we feel and probably are different from the rest. But when we go out into the market we fade away. I've been reading Peep Laja 's reflections on this and it's given me a lot to think about.
Being a different brand is very difficult and involves a risk
What is the problem? Maintaining this differentiation is difficult. Whether it is innovation, functionality, price, etc., over time everything can be imitated.
If we look at the Challenger Brands 2019 study , one of its main conclusions is that the biggest challenge we face with a brand is market saturation (at least in the opinion of marketing experts).
The market itself leads us to lack of differentiation. It is easy, and often unavoidable, to get carried away by market trends.
challenger brands 2019 adweek
We are aware of the competition, perhaps too much, we copy what works best, we go to the same sources for inspiration, if something new sells, we launch something similar... everything that achieves short-term sales interests us.
Brands want to be different, but end up being all the same
Just as we are social beings on an individual level, as companies we are a reflection of this natural tendency. For this reason, companies in the same sector tend to resemble each other .
Of course, if we target the same audience groups, they will have similar tastes in relation to the type of products that the sector offers, but that is what differentiation is about, finding a new way to approach them. We feel more secure if we do what everyone else does, we are afraid of breaking away from the pattern and being original. What if it doesn't work? What if it doesn't sell?
Being an original brand is scary and very difficult
There are studies that show that our audience tends to confuse the attributes of one brand with those of another , which makes it very difficult to achieve the much desired differentiation by functionality and may explain the results of the Meaningful Brands study that I mentioned at the beginning (be careful when comparing studies, because depending on how they were done it may not be possible to do so).
This effect is more evident the more generic or undifferentiated the product is (obviously). In other words, we will confuse brands of bread more than fitness bracelets. But the latter will not be completely free from this problem.
So what can we do to stand out and be the chosen brand? What is the most appropriate strategy to achieve this?
It is not enough to be different, we must be distinct
No, I'm not playing a language game. Translating the subtitle, what I mean is that:
Not only do we need to be different, but we need to help our audience distinguish us from other brands. We need to become a familiar brand to them.
What sets us apart is the benefit we offer our audience that other brands don't have. Being different doesn't depend so much on the brands, but on our audience being able to distinguish us from the rest.
And how do we achieve this? Through visibility, becoming familiar brands for our audience based on well-segmented impacts .
We must keep in mind that our audience receives hundreds of impacts a day, and as much as we are different, after the first impacts, for our audience we are nothing more than a vague memory.
That is why we must insist on impacts so that our brand ends up being familiar as well as different from the others because it offers them what they were looking for. This principle is the basis of the great campaigns that seem to flood the different communication channels.
Being different, or what we call brand recall index translated into marketing terms , is one of the keys to a strategy.
What we have seen so far is a more “scientific” explanation of something that we have been talking about in marketing for years (and which I have insisted on in this blog on many occasions):
Brand awareness is the basis of a successful marketing strategy , it is what allows our audience to keep us in their minds during the purchasing process and subsequent loyalty.
In other words, to be successful with our marketing strategy, we must combine quality with quantity, differentiation with visibility, segmentation with repetition of impacts... achieving this balance is not easy.
In addition to being different and distinct, our brands must be RELEVANT
Yes, I know this sounds like a play on words, but I assure you that understanding these nuances is what allows us to define marketing strategies that work .
As I was saying, the success of a marketing strategy depends on many other factors, such as sending the right message at the right time in the purchasing process, using the format that best suits our audience and highlighting the product they really need. This is what I have defined as relevance marketing .
We are different when our value proposition is appropriate for our audience, we are different (we get ourselves to be distinguished) when we make our brand familiar through well-segmented impacts, and we are relevant when we combine both factors and our communications stand out and are important for our audience. It is what makes us click on the ad, it is what really drives sales.
How do we become a relevant brand for our audience?
I will continue to reflect on this in future articles, but to close this one I leave you with my point of view on what are the keys to a relevant brand: brand, differentiation, visibility, relevance and purpose for our audience.
This huge simplification of the strategic philippines girls telegram approaches of most companies is both a reality and a huge paradox, because in reality, for our target audience, all brands seem the same.
If we exchanged our brand logos, in 9 out of 10 cases our customers wouldn't notice.
How? No, I haven't gone crazy. The data is a bit old, but it's as true as life itself: according to the Meaningful Brands study carried out by Havas Group in 2017, 91% of Spaniards (74% worldwide) think that brands are dispensable .
What happened between the two approaches? We went to market with the clear objective of differentiating ourselves and we ended up being like all the other brands in our sector.
Deep down we feel and probably are different from the rest. But when we go out into the market we fade away. I've been reading Peep Laja 's reflections on this and it's given me a lot to think about.
Being a different brand is very difficult and involves a risk
What is the problem? Maintaining this differentiation is difficult. Whether it is innovation, functionality, price, etc., over time everything can be imitated.
If we look at the Challenger Brands 2019 study , one of its main conclusions is that the biggest challenge we face with a brand is market saturation (at least in the opinion of marketing experts).
The market itself leads us to lack of differentiation. It is easy, and often unavoidable, to get carried away by market trends.
challenger brands 2019 adweek
We are aware of the competition, perhaps too much, we copy what works best, we go to the same sources for inspiration, if something new sells, we launch something similar... everything that achieves short-term sales interests us.
Brands want to be different, but end up being all the same
Just as we are social beings on an individual level, as companies we are a reflection of this natural tendency. For this reason, companies in the same sector tend to resemble each other .
Of course, if we target the same audience groups, they will have similar tastes in relation to the type of products that the sector offers, but that is what differentiation is about, finding a new way to approach them. We feel more secure if we do what everyone else does, we are afraid of breaking away from the pattern and being original. What if it doesn't work? What if it doesn't sell?
Being an original brand is scary and very difficult
There are studies that show that our audience tends to confuse the attributes of one brand with those of another , which makes it very difficult to achieve the much desired differentiation by functionality and may explain the results of the Meaningful Brands study that I mentioned at the beginning (be careful when comparing studies, because depending on how they were done it may not be possible to do so).
This effect is more evident the more generic or undifferentiated the product is (obviously). In other words, we will confuse brands of bread more than fitness bracelets. But the latter will not be completely free from this problem.
So what can we do to stand out and be the chosen brand? What is the most appropriate strategy to achieve this?
It is not enough to be different, we must be distinct
No, I'm not playing a language game. Translating the subtitle, what I mean is that:
Not only do we need to be different, but we need to help our audience distinguish us from other brands. We need to become a familiar brand to them.
What sets us apart is the benefit we offer our audience that other brands don't have. Being different doesn't depend so much on the brands, but on our audience being able to distinguish us from the rest.
And how do we achieve this? Through visibility, becoming familiar brands for our audience based on well-segmented impacts .
We must keep in mind that our audience receives hundreds of impacts a day, and as much as we are different, after the first impacts, for our audience we are nothing more than a vague memory.
That is why we must insist on impacts so that our brand ends up being familiar as well as different from the others because it offers them what they were looking for. This principle is the basis of the great campaigns that seem to flood the different communication channels.
Being different, or what we call brand recall index translated into marketing terms , is one of the keys to a strategy.
What we have seen so far is a more “scientific” explanation of something that we have been talking about in marketing for years (and which I have insisted on in this blog on many occasions):
Brand awareness is the basis of a successful marketing strategy , it is what allows our audience to keep us in their minds during the purchasing process and subsequent loyalty.
In other words, to be successful with our marketing strategy, we must combine quality with quantity, differentiation with visibility, segmentation with repetition of impacts... achieving this balance is not easy.
In addition to being different and distinct, our brands must be RELEVANT
Yes, I know this sounds like a play on words, but I assure you that understanding these nuances is what allows us to define marketing strategies that work .
As I was saying, the success of a marketing strategy depends on many other factors, such as sending the right message at the right time in the purchasing process, using the format that best suits our audience and highlighting the product they really need. This is what I have defined as relevance marketing .
We are different when our value proposition is appropriate for our audience, we are different (we get ourselves to be distinguished) when we make our brand familiar through well-segmented impacts, and we are relevant when we combine both factors and our communications stand out and are important for our audience. It is what makes us click on the ad, it is what really drives sales.
How do we become a relevant brand for our audience?
I will continue to reflect on this in future articles, but to close this one I leave you with my point of view on what are the keys to a relevant brand: brand, differentiation, visibility, relevance and purpose for our audience.