Ways to Differentiate a Brand: Owning an Attribute

Mark and Lorraine dive right into an explanation on one of their most critical positioning tools: Ways to Differentiate. After some discussion on how and why the tool is used, they take a deep dive on what it means to Own an Attribute as your differentiating idea.

Spend 30-ish with Mark and Lorraine to learn more about advertising, marketing, and positioning.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:17 How Many Ways to Differentiate?
• 3:36 Why Companies Revert to the Sea of Sameness
• 6:54 Why Only 11 Categories?
• 8:20 Where Did The Tool Originate?
• 9:31 How is the Ways to Differentiate Tool Used?
• 13:26 The R&D Positioning Map
• 16:24 Owing an Attribute
• 20:37 An Exercise in Owning an Attribute
• 29:42 What Makes Owning an Attribute a Popular Way to Differentiate?
• 34:11 Outro

Transcript

[intro music]

Mark Vandegrift:
Welcome to the latest episode of the Brand Shorthand Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Vandegrift, and with me is the diva of positioning, Lorraine Kessler.

I think we have another great topic planned. We're going to start the first of quite a few episodes on the ways to differentiate and no worries, we'll intermingle with some other topics. The ways to differentiate -- there's quite a few ways and each one deserves a discussion unto itself. But we're going to start broadly today. That way we can give a little bit of background for our listeners to understand why we have a list, which is called “Ways to Differentiate,” and how that impacts the work that we do for clients and how our clients can think through. So I'm going to give you the first of about five questions, Lorraine.

Lorraine Kessler:
Oh geez.

Mark Vandegrift:
And the first, yeah, and they're not hard. They'll roll right off your tongue. So here's the first: How many ways – in the total universe – can we differentiate a brand? Whether it be a product, service, company, or individual, that's how we define a brand. So let me ask again, how many ways in the total universe can we differentiate a brand?

Lorraine Kessler:
Well, there aren't infinite ways to differentiate. We've codified through our practice and looking at the works of Jack Trout positioning and differentiate or die, we've enumerated or codified, I think, around 11 ways, primary ways to differentiate, but within each there's iteration. So whether it's creating a category, whether it's leadership, whether it's heritage, which can have different dimensions, whether it's family heritage, long history, cultural, like the country of origin, French wines, Russian vodka, there's iterations within those 11 different ways of differentiating that we've codified. Then there's some creative ways to differentiate on that position once you have a strategic idea. Particularly useful if you have a commodity product, such as creating the character or personification Flo for progressive, things like that. Tim Williams, who we've heard, Mark, we went to a seminar and he wrote a book called Positioning for Professionals. He said there's really only two ways to differentiate, and that is you're either low cost or you're adding value. You're differentiating so that you can charge a higher price. and get a higher margin for your products and that's adding value. But within those ways of adding value aside from lower cost, you know, we've got about 10 primary ways, 11 being low cost. And those are the ones that we work with.

Mark Vandegrift:
Even in the one we're going to focus on today, which is owning an attribute, think how many attributes there are in the world. So even though we've determined there aren't an infinite number of ways to differentiate, there's still a lot of different ways. I bet we probably applied, I don't know, what would you say, 50 to 100 different types of positions for our clients over the years. And even within the ones that are the same, there's always a nuance to it. So second question, let's assume there's a big number, okay? If that's the case, why did companies, why do you think , companies run toward the sea of sameness instead of finding a way to differentiate themselves? What makes differentiation so hard?

Lorraine Kessler:
Well, I think there's two related things. One is that so many of our clients or people we talk to in business marketers say, well, our business is … we have a commodity product. We're in a commoditization market. And once you start that thinking, then you're really sunk because there are no commodity markets. There are no commodity products. So you need to have a spark of strategic insight and creativity to see that there's always an ability to separate, create kind of a new thought within whatever that market is. The second is that social observers and scientists will tell you is that the urge to copy is so innately human in us, that it's so exceptionally strong in the human species that we rely on. In some respects, it's because we rely on it, copying to learn and survive. I mean, that's how children learn, right? So this urge is what causes us to closely examine what competitors are doing and to make sure we're offering the same or better features and adapt best practices. There's nothing wrong with those things, adopting best practices. It's just that those things further commoditize you and lead to undifferentiated brands. If that's all you did, you're just doing table stakes. And so what happens is you commoditize your product or service, but you actually commoditize a whole marketplace. Now let's take a market that's, has always been called commoditized. Water, all of a sudden we have bottled water, we have Perrier. Coffee, you know, that and five cents or a nickel will get you, you know. a cup of coffee, whatever that old expression was. So then comes Starbucks, and they create a coffee experience that's wildly differentiated, inspired by two things: Italian coffee and actually a restauranteur from the early days in America in Philadelphia and New York called Horn and Hardart, who had an experience that brought people together to share coffee and very good food and have conversations in the morning and in the afternoon and at lunchtime when they worked in those big cities at a time when people lived in the cities they worked in. So, yeah, so successful branding really means going against this urge to copy and it's not easy to do.

It's hard to do. And that's why I think clients fall into the trap of, you know, becoming kind of stymied creatively and they convince themselves we're in a commodity market, we have a commodity product and there's no way to differentiate.

Mark Vandegrift:
Well, that I think leads to the third question then.

Why did we narrow our list to only about a dozen ways to differentiate? You mentioned the clients. How does that help them?

Lorraine Kessler:
Well, there's 12, how do I say this? There's 11 or so primary ways, but as I said, there's iterations within each. And it's merely as a way of kind of, as we talked in another podcast, the last one, I believe … we talked about how the brain operates with ladders and categories. So you can think about these ways to differentiate that we've codified as the broad general categories of 11. But there's many ways within them to extend that differentiation in terms of what it means. 

For example, any brand that reaches beyond just a good and service that delivers a benefit then begins to go into an experience. And so how that's delivered, how particular to who the audience is, what the product and service is, whether it's a consumer product, whether it's a business to business, it takes on a unique character for every single client that we would engage or anybody would engage. It's got to be somewhat unique, a unique formula for every client.

Mark Vandegrift:
If someone were to say, well, where'd you get this list and why these 12? What do you think you would tell them in that case?

Lorraine Kessler:
Well, I believe this list right here that we created that we use in our AD came from the book, Differentiate or Die. I think it was within the case studies within that book that Jack Trout wrote, I think with Al Ries, there's enumeration of these various strategies. And then they're overlaid with ways to differentiate a commodity, which go on top of these, like identifying with a symbol, personifying with a character, you know, repositioning the whole category, like lead-free gas, let's reposition categories. So there's, again, enumerations under some of the main categories, but that's where they came from.

Mark Vandegrift:
Good. So we use this list very religiously. I don't think we've not ever had in the hundreds of Appreciative Discoveries® we've done. So explain to our listeners how we use this list in the Appreciative Discovery® and what's so important about the tool? What does it do for the process? Kind of summarize that for our listeners and why it matters so much to us.

Lorraine Kessler:
Right. Well, first of all, it becomes a deductive tool. So it makes it very easy to engage client participants after intense discussion around the four filters that we've established, the four Cs, as we call them, of the customer, who is the specific customer, whether they care a lot about. The company, what do you care a lot about beyond making money, what are you passionate about, what you will and won't commit to. The competition, where are they in the mind and what space can we earn uniquely, maximize differentiation. And the context, what's going on in the greater market that might be influencing trends and things like that. 

So once we go through that four filters discussion, we get to a point where some things start to bubble up in terms of possibilities for positioning. And this list helps the clients literally as a checklist, if you will, to go through and say, “Oh, are we the leader? Well, no, we're not. We're kind of a small player.” Okay, so that's out. You know, it's deductive. Can we own an attribute? Do we do something? Do we deliver some value that a particular customer really values a segment, a customer segment values over another, whether it's being faster or sexier or harder working. Maybe very different customer segments. So, you know, who do we really appeal to? So it can be that. And so it gives them a deductive tool. Preference is a great one too. Many brands aren't the leader, but they might be pilot-preferred. So that's great. Choosing mothers choose Jif. That's preference. So it just for within the group, what we're trying to do, we do an Appreciative Discovery with top leadership and decision-makers on marketing and on positioning, which has to affect the whole organization, is we really want buy-in from that leadership group. They really have to come together on the decision because they're going to have to own it. It's not something you just decide in a meeting and walk away from. And it starts that ownership process because they're participating in choosing which of these 11 they feel most fit after listening to each other and hearing from each other and sharing all the knowledge, collective knowledge, that they have.

Mark Vandegrift:
It's not an exclusive list, meaning we've seen brands like Heinz Ketchup, they're the leader, but they also own the attribute of slow, or thick, depending on how you want to apply that, but the commercials were all about that. They didn't need to advertise, hey, we're the leader, but they advertised an attribute of what they have. So I think it's always neat to see people's minds… You can almost see the smoke coming out their ears after they've been educated on positioning. And we talk a lot about their company. To be sitting there looking at this list that you showed and to literally be crossing off things. Nope, we're not that, we're not that. Oh, we could be this. That's pretty cool.

Lorraine Kessler:
Some become pretty obvious. They fall out pretty quickly. And usually we're left with three or four candidate ideas, and then we can vet further and get to the one that's the most powerful. That's what we're looking for is what idea is the most pervasive and powerful for the company and what can they commit to with everything? Their money, their dollars, their time, their energy, their feelings. the experience they deliver.

Mark Vandegrift:
Yeah, you know, explain something there, Lorraine. I'll throw it up on the screen here, which is the R&D that we like to always talk about and how those ideas can be mapped on a positioning map and what we're really shooting for. So maybe talk a little bit about that. I'll throw this up on the screen.

Lorraine Kessler:
Yeah. One of the tests of a strong idea comes down to two of the filters that are most important. The customer filter, which is we represent by the R, that's relevance to the distinctive audience or the target segment that you think cares a lot about what you're doing and how you do it. So that's the R. Relevance always has to come before differentiation, because your idea has to be important to somebody and in enough market size, total customer market, to deliver a profit to the organization. I mean, some people have said that the purpose of a business, Drucker says, is to produce a customer. That requires relevance. Others have said the purpose of a business is to deliver a profit. Well, if you're not profitable, then good luck. So I would say both of them, they're not mutually exclusive. So that's the R, relevance. How meaningful is this idea to a target audience? And audiences value different things. So, you know, it might be extremely valuable. Somebody who wants a sports car and wants to look super successful in that car and young, is not going to be the same person who wants to buy a safe car for the family because they're concerned about the wellbeing of their children and what have you. So that's where that comes in. 

And then differentiation is how does it maximize the separation between your product and service and competitors? The more maximization, the further the gap, the better. One of the things we did, Mark, is we did create a positioning gap research methodology, quantitative, to kind of test the relevance of different ideas with target segments. See what idea floated there both the most, what values, or particularly this was useful with attribute testing, and then said, well, who else do you know is delivering this? And if so, how well are they delivering it? And so we were able, through that research, to pinpoint for a couple of our clients who were willing to go that far, you know, here's where we need to be on the R&D scale. 

Mark Vandegrift:
That's some great background. And I think it's necessary to get into this topic on ways to differentiate. Otherwise, I think our listeners wouldn't understand the episodes where we touch on these different ways. So let's get to it. 

Let's start with one of my favorite ways to differentiate a product, service, company, or individual, or experience, as you've added. And that's owning an attribute. And the reason I think it's so fun for me is that it's somewhat of a mystery, one, to figure out that attribute, and then also how to express it. And, you know, expressing it in just the right way that touches the emotion is always such a challenge because you mentioned reliability for the switch company that we used before and we used it as “rugged reliability” because it was in a rugged atmosphere or environment. And so just that nuance of taking reliability and adding rugged to it, which is just such a fun development. You know, you see the creative unfold. And I want to read for our listeners, how we describe owning an attribute in our sheet that you held up earlier. And it starts with the rules of play. 

So this is an attribute ownership is probably the number one way to differentiate a product. 

The definition is, an attribute is a characteristic or distinctive feature of a person or a thing. Persons or things are a mixture of attributes. Some attributes are more desirable or important than others. What makes a product or person unique is being known for one of these attributes. You can't own the same attribute or position that your competitor owns. You must seek another attribute to own. Too often a company tries to emulate the leader. It's much better to search for an opposite attribute that will allow you to play off against the leader. The most effective attributes are simple and benefit oriented, such as fights cavities or kills germs. It is much better to be narrow and specific. Specifics sell. Generalities do not. “The drink of a new generation” is much better than the homogenized “joy of cola.” 

There is also a halo effect. If you establish one benefit, the prospect is likely to give you a lot of other benefits. For example, a safer car implies better engineering. 

Lorraine, this is our textbook explanation. So share with us with your broader perspective and experience on what it means to own an attribute.

Lorraine Kessler:
Yeah, well, I mean, it is to own that characteristic or specific characteristic that separates you and speaks very clearly to a target segment who cares a lot about that. I remember Alan Bradley used to go against other engineering firms who were state of the art, new generation type things, by saying state of the art is not always the most reliable. So that was the reliability attribute, right? And when you are engineering something of massive infrastructure, cost or what have you, you want it to work. Whether it's the newest or latest or greatest becomes less important than, is this thing going to work? Is it going to deliver on the value and the cost of this experience? So, you know, as I said, it could be sexy. It could be … Ace is the helpful hardware place, right? So helpful is an attribute. And that's good for Ace because they can't out-Lowe Lowes. They can't out-Home Depot, Home Depot, but they can be the best little corner hardware store in every neighborhood in America by being the helpful place.

So that would be, if we were working with them, that... We would basically say that's a great position. How do we now dramatize it, as you called that before, the creative. How do we express it in the most meaningful and engaging way possible? I hope that helps.

Mark Vandegrift:
Well, let's do a quick word association to help our listeners understand how owning an attribute works because I think illustration is the best form of education. So let's start with cars. I'm going to say an attribute and you name the brand. OK?

So number one, car category, ultimate drivability car.

Lorraine Kessler:
A BMW, ultimate driving machine.

Mark Vandegrift:
Yep. Reliable car.

Lorraine Kessler:
Uh Toyota.

Mark Vandegrift:
Affordable luxury car.

Lorraine Kessler:
Lexus.

Mark Vandegrift:
Safe car.

Lorraine Kessler:
Volvo, although they've let that connection, that equivalence between the attribute and their brand name weaken, by abandoning consistent marketing around that idea. So other Kia, for example, has come on strong and Subaru. Yeah, they've all come on strong on the safety front.

Mark Vandegrift:
Yeah, exactly. And if you look at all of these attributes, ultimate driveability, reliable, affordable luxury, safe, you can see how those are differentiating. There's a big enough niche or buying customer that is attracted to that particular attribute. Ultimate driving machine, as you say, that might be the young hipster that wants to show he's cool and he's up and coming. Whereas reliable is going to be the family car. You know, my whole family, all we have are Toyotas because they've proven to be so reliable over the years. So, that's just one of those things that from the standpoint of an attribute, it's easy to see in this category how these particular brands have separated themselves. 

Let's go next to the toothpaste aisle. Okay, I'm goint to read some attributes …

Lorraine Kessler:
For our viewers and listeners, this is all, this is not planned. You're saying something and I have to think, you know, immediately what the connection is. And that means that the brand has done a good job. So if I miscue on one, it may be that brand needs to go back to the drawing board. And actually, as our old media buyer used to say many years ago, “we need to advertise these guys.” Say maybe need to go back and advertise a little more. Yeah.

Mark Vandegrift:
Well, a good example of that is, we'll do that since you just mentioned, if I said overnight delivery, you and I would probably answer FedEx because we remember those commercials. But if you ask any young person today, the answer we're getting the most is Amazon. And
they're not … we don't think of them being in the delivery business, but that's how far FedEx has allowed that position to be lost, I think, really. We remember the commercials with the fast talking salesman. So it's a little dependent on what generation you're in, too.

Lorraine Kessler:
And how those businesses have then moved from a single focus, rather singular, to a foci. Uh, and the mind has allowed them to go there. I still think of FedEx as rapid delivery. You know, uh, but do they own that alone? Along with UPS and Amazon?

Mark Vandegrift:
Obviously not! Not if young people aren’t naming them.

Lorraine Kessler: 
It’s what we call group brand preference. And so if I were working with FedEx, I would see how we could further differentiate, maybe by using some of these tools that I talked about how to differentiate a commodity, right? Like using a personification, a character, or you know, creating a new category or something like that.

Mark Vandegrift:
Very good. Well, let's go to the toothpaste aisle next. So here are some attributes … organic or natural toothpaste.

Lorraine Kessler:
That's that Tom's of Maine, I think.

Mark Vandegrift:
Yes.

Lorraine Kessler:
And it tastes terrible. Have you ever had that toothpaste?

Mark Vandegrift:
Yeah, and I will never have it again, but there's a big enough group out there that keeps them in business.

Lorraine Kessler:
Well, I think it's like Listerine. People think medicine breath, it's working. If it tastes that bad, it must be good for me. I don't know. That's it.

Mark Vandegrift:
Well, you know, there's the anti-fluoride, anti-chlorine, anti-a-lot-of-chemical stuff. So some people are willing to put up with bad taste for the benefit of having the organic. So that's why they own that position.

Lorraine Kessler:
That's insane. And I actually think that might be a support to the organic, that it doesn't taste great, that it doesn't taste appetizing. It's almost kind of a little bit of like, I give myself some cred for using this, for being a good organic person. I'm suffering a little bit.

Mark Vandegrift:
Well, this next one's a softball because the name implies what it is. Sensitive teeth toothpaste.

Lorraine Kessler:
Oh, Sensodyne, yeah, yeah. I hate to admit that we have some of that.

Mark Vandegrift:
Fresh breath toothpaste.

Lorraine Kessler:
I'd say Aquafresh first because fresh is in the name. So good association. I also, and I don't know if anybody younger would remember this, but Close-up. 

Mark Vandegrift:
Yeah, I think that was the kissing toothpaste, we used to call it.

Lorraine Kessler:
Oh, yeah, yeah, when it's close-up. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What the heck happened to them? I don't see them advertising anymore.

Mark Vandegrift:
They're still around but you know there's so many toothpastes in the toothpaste aisle that I don't think they've done a good job.

Lorraine Kessler:
No.

Mark Vandegrift:
Now this one's harder but I think. We do have a name we can associate with it and that's whitening toothpaste.

Lorraine Kessler:
Well, I don't think it's harder. I think that's Crest. I think Crest, when I was a kid in kindergarten, we kids took a poll and the world was split between Colgate and Crest and then Crest won as the time went on because they promoted fights cavities, that was their thing. They, the attribute that they on was fights cavities, but over the years, I mean, that was a time when people didn't go to the dentist very often. It's post-World War II, kind of baby boomer generations. People just didn't go to doctors and dentists. There wasn't fluoride everywhere in the water. And then as I think as, you know, I've gone through my life, fluoride is, cavities have become less of a problem. And what's really seems to be the concern with people is gum health, overall oral health, and certainly the beauty, the whitening teeth. Having whiter teeth, you know, which is kind of a hygienic thing and a beauty thing, you know, kind of stroking your hair. 

So Crest has done what Lysol did, which they could because they were the leader in toothpaste with the fights cavities start and they expanded out. So they're now a mega brand. And when I think of Crest today, I think they own everything related to oral care, everything that could be possible for oral care. They have the whole shelf and pretty smart move for them as a leader.

Mark Vandegrift:
Well, let's go with one more, but I'm going to list the brand first, and you give me the idea, the positioning idea. Okay, you ready?

Lorraine Kessler:
Okay. Yep.

Mark Vandegrift:
New Balance, we're in the shoe category now, New Balance.

Lorraine Kessler:
Runners, preference by runners, preferred shoe of runners.

Mark Vandegrift:
Okay. Converse.

Lorraine Kessler:
In my day, that was the only sneaker. Today, I think their repositioning is kind of a rebel shoe.

Mark Vandegrift:
Yeah, and they're owned by Nike, by the way.

Lorraine Kessler:
I did not know that.

Mark Vandegrift:
Yeah, uh… Skechers.

Lorraine Kessler:
Old people's, uh, stylish shoes.

Mark Vandegrift:
I don't think that's an attribute you want.

Lorraine Kessler:
No, no, they're comfortable, comfortable, good for your feet, kind of casual sneakers. Comfort.

Mark Vandegrift:
Yeah. And then Nike, they're the leader, but what attribute?

Lorraine Kessler:
It's definitely the performance shoe for athletes. Weekend athletes who want to play like Michael Jordan while he's retired now, but pick a new pick a new athlete. Want to play basketball like LeBron. He's not even young.

Mark Vandegrift:
Well, I think our listeners can see with just these three categories, we can see how much you can differentiate by owning an attribute. We say owning an attribute is probably the number one way to differentiate a product, and I think it's one of the easiest as well. What's in play here that makes this an obvious move for brand differentiation?

Lorraine Kessler:
Well, depending on the product or category, there's different audiences. Again, it really plays to segmentation. Different audiences have different demands, even business to business. They might prefer long lasting to a safety message or to a low cost message. So it allows you to segment the market and then you increase the rapport, which by the way, the word rapport comes from the Greek word, to close the distance. So you increase rapport or relevance, RR again, with that core audience, which gives a lot of authenticity with that core customer. And that creates, you know, kind of missionaries for the brand within the customer segment, because people who really feel that you've closed that distance tend to tell others about this product, who care a lot about the same things. 

So it is, as you said, the number one way. It's not necessarily the best way to differentiate. That's different. Leadership is the best way to differentiate. And as we said, you either are the leader, you've achieved that in some way, either through sales leadership or performance or technology, having more firsts than anybody else, or best, you created a new category that you alone, you created your own sandbox and you own it. So that's always the first thing that we kind of look for. How can we create a new category and be a leader if we're not a leader in those other three ways? If we are a leader in those other three ways, how do we say it so that people feel like they've heard it for the first time and they never forget it. So now it's about the communication value of how we creatively dramatize that position. Because the best thing you can do for your competitors, if you are a leader in any of these ways, is to not claim it.

And sometimes we've had clients who like in this kind of false humility, “well, we don't really like to bang our chest.” Well, you're not banging your chest, you're stating the truth that your customers value. They want the assurance. People are insecure. They want the security they're buying the leader. And it's going to deliver something unique of value to them that buying the substitute is not. And again, it gives you that contrast of it's either the leader or it's a substitute. We know what that word means. 

So anyway, it is number one because often, particularly highly competitive markets, there are a number of different attributes you can pick up that might be important that you can own because no one's talking about that one thing with the singularity that you're going to talk about it. Just like other agencies, somebody asked us, I think, in one of our podcasts about why we're the positioning experts. It's not like we're the only agency that talks about positioning, but it's dominant for us. It is THE thing. It is THE ONE thing. Where with other agencies, if you ask them, hey, what do you think about brand position? Oh yeah, we think it's important. It's way down. And they'll tell you, yeah, we do it, if asked. So some of this has to do with the dominance of where you put the focus.

Mark Vandegrift:
Well, we just had an example of that yesterday. A new client, three months in, emailed us and gave us just a glowing review on how the position that we came up for them is transforming their business. It's making a huge difference already. He used the word – reputation -- is growing. He indicated all the KPIs that they want are growing. Business couldn't be better. So we've seen that happen before. We had a client that their sales force was in the Appreciative Discovery®, and I think within a day, they went out, made a sales call, and closed a huge deal because they implemented the new position on the fly in their sales meeting. So it does make a difference. These ways to differentiate are key. 

This one about owning an attribute, again, one of my favorites, because I just like to see the creative that comes out of it. But Lorraine, great advice today. I think we need to bring today's episode to a close. 

Hopefully our discussion will help our listeners understand better why owning an attribute can be a powerful differentiation strategy. So thank you for joining us and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode when we, as always, will do a deep dive on some of the core concepts of positioning. Until then, have an amazing day.

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