NORTHERN PLANNER

"Always enjoy reading your blog. 

 

I read "How brands grow" as it was something mentioned in your blog and have a question. Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I didn't understand what the implications are from a communication perspective and wanted to understand what your take away was. I currently work on a brand where the laws in his book serve as a bible. When we have conversations around this topic, I can't help but feel the clients and I have different interpretations of what the laws mean from a communications perspective. Take the idea of reaching light buyers. The clients interpret that as having a message that can resonate with everyone (literally) while, I still feel it's important for a brand to have a clear POV in order to provoke consideration. 

 

Another thing we debate over is distinctiveness vs differentiation. Can you please help me understand the difference based on your understanding? It seems we use these terms interchangeably. Isn't distinctiveness based on a differentiation? I'm confused"

Got to agree, don't take any marketing book as law. However, stuff in here is really useful, it's how you apply it!

For me, the book is saying:

Reach as many people as you can afford, because growth comes from lighter buyers

Keep on reaching them, folks are not very loyal and forget brands very quickly

The role of advertising is simply salience – get the brand to be the first one that comes to mind in buying situations

That means from an execution perspective, the worse thing you can do is produce formulaic advertising because no one will remember it

It also means make it stir the emotions, they get the brand encoded into the memory better than 'rational messaging'

It's more than that, you need to make the brand distinctive.

Sharpe says most people can't tell you why the brand they buy is different, but I don't buy that, they just can't articulate something that is instinctive and about how something feels. Nike FEELS different to Adidas, just as Apple feels different to Samsung. That's why media like TV is still so efficient, it provokes emotional response best.

Sharpe says be distinctive which I get, basically, don't mess around with 'differentiation' especially rational stuff, just make your brand and product stand out

You should read the follow up book, there's some really useful stuff on building salience. Because simply standing out is waste of time, every piece of advertising needs to get people to think of the brand in as many entry points into the category as they can – remove reasons not to buy and create new reasons to buy. Sometimes that's because the brand is uncool, sometimes they think it's overpriced, sometimes it's a fizzy drink they don't think of consuming at lunchtime.

I agree with the client that you should try and make the communication appeal to as many people as possible. That means if you sell soap powder, it's a massive audience of anyone who is the 'main shopper'. If its golf, it's only relevance to middle class men…and increasingly women. Once thing Sharpe does really well is dispel the myth of segmentation. If you look at what makes people different, you'll find it, but equally, most people care about the same things and are never as different as you think. Even in this age of fragmented media, Star Wars s still a massive hit, in the UK the media that does the best numbers are the big TV channels. Just make sure the brand has something new and interesting to say about something about the category people are interested in.

I tend to find going out and talking to real people soon shows you most brands are talking to pen portraits and miss what people really care about. For example, you can't move for soft drinks brands in the UK talking about low sugar and health…and forgetting that they are bought because they are supposed to be a treat and taste nice….and they like them with food, especially these days as people are drinking alcohol less. I've found they are drunk on an evening more and more by young people out and about and also gaming at home, or watching telly, I can't name one soft drinks brand with am interesting point of view on the evening routine.

Also, we're seeing more and brands getting bought on peer recommendation. That's another reason to target mass media and provoke conversation, getting talked about sells, I wonder if targeting conversations and the intersections between people is getting more useful that targeting 'people'.

A short answer to distinctiveness v differentiation is that distinctiveness means you target getting remembered for anything at all costs, even talking about generic stuff in a way no one else does. Differentiation means something clearly unique to the brand. in many cases, something folks don't care about. People are looking for short cuts in choosing stuff, simply having heard of you and feeling good about in many cases is a great start.

That's why building up ownable assets is so important. Visual symbols, emotional territory and triggers. Take alcohol. Nearly every beer brand talks about masculinity. Stella Artois grounds this in ownable french sophistication, despite being from Belgium, a chalice to drink it in and white, grey and red colour palettes. Heineken is green, about  being a capable male, discovery, football and possible one bloke being at the centre of the party.

All fizzy soft drinks are about refreshment. Coke is about making you happier, Pepsi is about enhancing the moment, IRN BRU in the UK is about fortification and so on……………

Hope this helps