Now here's a rum-do.
People, we're continually told, are faced with more choice than ever before. The consumer is in charge. So now, more than ever, brand differentiation is imperative for success.
So far, so true.
Why is it, then, that so many brands seem to say the same thing?
They're all positioned in the same way. If you don't believe me try playing the endline game. It's an easy one this. Pick a category. Financial services is a good one. Media agencies is even more fun, if you like that sort of thing. Then take all the endlines and mix them up. Do they still make sense? If they do, then you've got converging brands. Everyone's claiming the same thing. No one's differentiating.
I blame consumers. This may seem like an odd charge, but this is what I mean.
In the rush to become 'customer-centric', companies have spent way too much time asking consumers about what they want. There's nothing wrong with this as long as you remember that what you get back from consumers aren't brand insights. They're category insights.
So when you ask consmuers what they really want from your brand, what they are telling you is actually what they want from the category.
Not only that, but the same people (well not the same people exactly but you know what I mean) are sitting in another set of focus groups somewhere else saying exactly the same thing to your competitors.
So as soon as you hear the sentence 'this is what consumers said they want from the brand' be careful.
As Henry Ford said "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they'd have said 'faster horses' ".
-- Toby
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