Brand strategy

Member lesson

Differentiation

Lesson 14 of 20 in Brand strategy.

Mark Ritson on defending differentiation - IGNITE 2023 · Kantar
Lesson

Differentiation is the oldest instruction in marketing and one of the most contested. The classical account says a brand must be meaningfully different or it competes on price. The empirical challenge says most buyers perceive very little difference between brands in a category and buy from a small repertoire largely out of habit.

emptyand worthasking whyexpensivecheapplainornatean empty quadrant is either an opening or a place nobody wants
A positioning map with four competitors plotted and one empty quadrant.
On a bar counter three differently shaped bottles stand behind three identical glasses of the same pale fizzy drink, as a customer points at the spiral bottle.
Three bottles of very different shape pour the same fizzy drink into matching glasses. The drink barely differs, yet anyone could tell the bottles apart.
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Members answer these 3 questions and keep the ticket for this lesson. Every lesson has one.

  1. Question 1, locked

    Which of these words means this? “A difference buyers notice and value. Rarer than the industry assumes.”

    • Architecture decision
    • Point of parity
    • Distinctiveness
    • Meaningful differentiation
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “Being recognisable. Does not require being different in any meaningful way.”

    • Category codes
    • Distinctiveness
    • Codification
    • Uniqueness
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “What you must match to be considered at all. Think of it as the price of a ticket rather than a weakness.”

    • Point of parity
    • Brand
    • Decision log
    • Stakeholder interview

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