The chance to differentiate a brand can be hugely exciting, as any passionate marketer knows. But it can also lead to mistakes.
This point is highlighted by professor of marketing science Byron Sharp in his now-famous book, How Brands Grow. In it he argues that marketers should emphasise what he calls “meaningless distinctiveness” – rather than meaningful, perceived differentiation. Arguing for the meaningless over the meaningful might sound surprising but Sharp makes an important point that merits explanation.
By meaningful, perceived differentiation, he means an emphasis on points of difference that give audiences rational reasons to buy a product or service in a competitive market.
Sharp, whose name matches his mind, attacks this notion. Instead, he writes, marketers should focus on making their brands attractive and memorable through a range of sensory and semantic branding cues such as colours, logos, tag lines, symbols and characters, celebrities and advertising styles.
However, the challenge with any marketing theory, even one that’s keenly argued and based on real insight, is to apply it effectively. You need to see where it matches a situation and apply it with flair.
As an example, when we came to look at a campaign for P&O Cruises, it became clear that distinctiveness needed to guide our thinking, even though we didn’t at first classify the situation in these terms.
There were two reasons. First, P&O Cruises was already the market leader. The big opportunity was to appeal to people who don’t usually go on cruise holidays but would enjoy it, rather than getting other brands’ customers to defect. In other words, we wanted to grow the category, but in a way that benefited P&O Cruises.
Second, attempts to differentiate within the category are hard. You can create footage of people enjoying sundowners on deck or a sensational dinner, but they end up looking generic.
The art, of course, is in how you drive distinctiveness. For this particular campaign Cruises we used a distinctive promise, with a “This is the Life” strapline based on the insight that people want a holiday experience where they live life to the full. To create a distinctive visual identity, we emphasised the Britishness of the brand and its heritage. And for a distinctive voice and face, we used comedian Rob Brydon to tell the story of a cruise experience, with ironic British humour.
The result is a distinctive television ad campaign that is working exceptionally well for the client. The questions on our minds, however, are whether Sharp is always right: whether there is still a role for differentiation, and what it should be.
His points about the benefits of distinctiveness are almost certainly true for mainstream brands aimed at broad audiences, such as many fast-moving consumer goods or large holiday brands. However, we think differentiation still has an important place in an integrated marketing campaign. There may be business situations where both elements can work together in complementary ways. For example, online and PR mediums can be used to highlight differentiators.
Richard Perry founder and partner at Founded
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