Brand Differentiation When You Don’t Have Product Differentiation
When product differentiation is difficult or impossible, brands can still stand out by solving customer needs in a unique way.
When product differentiation is difficult or impossible, brands can still stand out by solving customer needs in a unique way.
An effective approach is to focus on three key elements:
Brand Differentiation Formula
Answer a Problem People Understand
Identify a frustration, difficulty, or pain point your customers experience
Solve a Need Many People Have
Provide a solution that relieves an practical customer need
Fulfill a Want People Don't Consciously Realize
Satisfy an underlying desire or aspiration that lives below the surface
If your brand can address all three areas in an ownable way, you create differentiation even without unique products.
Let's see how this works by looking at an iconic brand - Tide laundry detergent. Tide competes in a crowded market with lots of similar product offerings. But they have stood out for generations through savvy brand positioning.
Specifically, Tide nails all aspects of the brand differentiation formula:
Problem: People need clean clothes.
Tide hits this hard with their marketing—non-stop and consistently. Everywhere, from their packaging to coupons, in-store displays, and performance media.
Need: Keep clothes from wearing out; be affordable but not cheap.
This is everywhere in their brand marketing—commercials and ads.
Want: No stress in the decision; confidence with ease.
Tide hints at this in their brand marketing, but they also walk the talk:
Created the broad-handled packaging so it can be grabbed without looking.
Chose lower-than-ideal shelf space also makes it easier to grab.
Convey the sentiment of “the same quality with increased value" in countless ways, repeatedly.
At the end of the day, Tide does not have much in the way of functional product differentiation. So Tide created differentiation by being the only one in the category who deeply understood consumer needs.