‘Different – escaping the competitive herd’ by Youngme Moon

Business has been reduced to packaging meaningless distinctions as true differentiation.

Categories evolve in a particular way until a company does something unpredictable.

“Idea Brands” embrace wholesale rethinking. They intrigue and give pause for thought.

They have three attributes:

Reversal
They take away what we expect then give us what we don’t.

• Google took away the clutter, but added elegance, super fast results and a playful logo.
• IKEA offered minimal variety, four basic styles, no sales consultants, no delivery, no assembly. But it did offer childcare, a tasty café menu and a modern look and feel.

Reverse brands force their peers to re-evaluate their own value propositions.

Breakaway
Breakaway brands suggest we replace one archetype with another.

• Cirque du Soleil is everything a circus is not – no animals, no ringmasters, no peanut shell-laden floors.
• Swatch defined itself as an everyday fashion accessory to become the bestselling watch brand in history.

Breakaway brands achieve a kind of differentiation that is sustainable over the long term.

Hostility
Hostile brands lay down a gauntlet by enhancing the most contentious aspect of their product.

• MINI Cooper was blunt, direct and emphasised its small size – even smaller than you think!
• When rumours spread about its potential adverse health effects, Red Bull’s attitude was: if it makes you nervous, don’t drink it.
• This inflexible ‘love it or hate it’ approach (cf Marmite) can pay off in extreme differentiation.

Hostile brands penetrate by evoking more complex emotions and creating conversations.

Difference is key. Too much familiarity renders things invisible.

Apple excels in all three attributes:
Reversal – withholding features found on competitor brands.
Breakaway – releasing products that transcend category boundaries.
Hostility – an attitude of you’re either with us or against us.

It charges unfriendly prices. It’s secretive. It is non-responsive. Its take it or leave it attitude is almost disdainful. Yet it has hordes of devoted disciples.

Dove created difference by debunking fantasy; Harley created difference by nurturing it.

Too many brands generate nothing more than a bothersome background hum. The point is to create deep and sustainable grooves of separation from each other.

To build innovative organisations we need to give our most unconventional ideas a chance to breathe.

Consumer surveys can’t tell us how to surprise people. A brand can be hostile and magnetic at the same time.

Differentiation is a way of thinking. It’s a mindset. It’s a commitment.

What will the brands of tomorrow do?

• offer something that is hard to come by.
• reflect a commitment to a big idea.
• be intensely human.