Defending Differentiation

In this occasionally offensive but generally enjoyable forty-minute webinar, Mark Ritson defends differentiation and makes a series of practical suggestions.

In Mark’s words…

Once upon a time brands were warned that if they did not differentiate they would, and I quote, “die”. So, marketers took off in increasingly esoteric and unlikely flights of symbolic fancy. Eventually the Ehrenberg Bass Institute invaded the discipline in their black uniforms and thigh high boots. Their message was that rather than a marketing essential, differentiation was largely pointless. The new noun in town was distinctiveness and to the credit of Byron Sharp and his team the giant fallible pendulum of marketing was swung. But only from one silly extreme to another. Marketers now dismiss differentiation as impossible and worship instead at the altar of distinctiveness. This is patently dogmatic and slightly silly. One brand is perceived different from another. And in more ways than the monochrome, tight arse options that are grudgingly proposed in How Brands Grow. Differentiation is a legitimate, incredibly valuable branding prerogative.