A couple of years ago, frustrated with the overwhelming short term obsession and knee jerkism in the marketing world, I set about creating a set of Principles based on what isn't likely to change soon, or ever, for brands and advertisers.
By speaking to the marketers running the most successful businesses in the country like Yorkshire Tea and Nestle, to the disrupters in eye-watering growth like Astonish and Olly’s, then going on to look at a longer list of the most successful brands in the world, and finally comparing to the emerging weight evidence in effectiveness from the likes of WARC, the IPA and System1, I was able to land on a set of four brand communications Principles that I believe have the biggest impact on lasting brand growth.
Principle #1: Distinctiveness (and what brands can learn from great guitar players)
There are very few irrefutable truths in marketing, but if there’s one thing I’m sure we can all agree on, it’s that life just isn’t fair.
And to prove this point, I want you to think of your favourite guitar player (if you’re into good music), or a successful pop star (if you’re not).
By far and away I’m picking Jack White. I’m guessing you could be thinking of Slash, Eric Clapton Jimi Hendrix, Brian May, Tom Morello, or any of the other greats. All worthy contenders.
But I bet you’re not thinking of Joe Satriani.
Arguably, Joe is the most technically gifted guitar player to have ever lived. He’s the 15-time Grammy Award nominee who’s played with Mick Jagger, toured with Deep Purple and even taught Metallica’s Kirk Hammett. So why have you (probably) never heard of him?
For the pop lovers, you might ask a similar question… Why do we happily spend hundreds on a ticket to see Taylor Swift, instead of one of her backing singers who are, probably, more technically gifted singers?
The answer lies, of course, in distinctiveness.
Within a millisecond of hearing the raw, bluesy, intentionally imperfect tones chopping out of Jack White’s Fender, I know who’s playing it. The same can be said for the rest on the list, or for voices… whether it’s Bob Dylan or Lady Gaga singing, they are unmistakably them, and we know it in an instant.
For the same reason, the best brands and products aren’t always the most successful. If the marketing world was fair, the Sega Dreamcast would have been just as successful as the Playstation, we’d have Imperial Leather in the bathroom instead of Dove, BetaMax would have beaten VHS and Nokia Lumia wouldn’t have been crushed by Apple and Android.
Don’t get me wrong, very few poor brands and products win. But in a competitive market, the winners aren’t always the best, they’re the ones that come to mind quicker and stay there longer.
Achieving this is a more complicated conversation with a thousand moving parts, but the starting point is deciding how and why you’re going to be distinctive. To be unmistakably you at all times, you need to know exactly what ‘you’ is… How you look, how you sound, think, feel and behave. And more importantly, what you don’t look, sound or act like.
People will only ever hold one or two things in their mind about your brand, because their brain is full to the brim with things the actually care about, so you need to choose what you want that to be, and commit to it all in.
Think of it this way… 95% of buying decisions are made on autopilot, by the unconscious mind. Take car insurance for example. It’s arguably a ‘considered’ purchase (definitely more considered than a pack of crisps) yet very few people will sit and consciously weigh up the pros and cons of different comparison sites. They’ll remember the meerkats, do their comparisons as quickly as possible then get on with making tea for the kids.
If we look at our own clients, or most brands of the successful brands across most categories, there are three main roads to distinctiveness:
Distinctive brand
Asda is green, Halfords in orange, innocent is cheeky, Apple is simple.
Being distinctive can be as simple as choosing a handful of fluent brand devices that are unmistakably yours, be it how you look, how you act, sound or speak. Your brand needs a look people can spot in a crowd and never confuse for anyone else.
Distinctive character
Kevin the Carrot, Aleksandr the Meerkat, the Honey Monster. Brand characters are potential the single most direct route to distinctiveness. With the right idea and investment a character can become synonymous with a brand which has three major benefits.
Firstly, a character can get away with saying things a brand can’t. Secondly, a character allows you to que brand recognition without showing a logo or product; you’ll be recognised without stepping out of entertain-mode into sales-mode. And finally, humans a naturally inclined to pay attention to natural characters – think animals, people, fruit or vegetables. We’re programmed to pay attention to these. We’re not programmed to give a shit about car insurance or washing powder.
Distinctive creative platform
‘You should’ve gone to…’ ‘Love it or hate it.’ ‘Have a break. Have a…’ I dare say you know the brand each of these relate to, and you can probably think of a load more yourself. These aren’t just straplines bolted onto the end of an ad, they’re distinctive creative platforms from which an infinite number of executions, across any media, can be born.
The interesting thing with all these platforms, is that you don’t need a specific product ‘differentiator’, had the brands behind these platforms not created them, Vision Express could have used ‘should have gone to’, ‘love it or hate it’ could be about marmalade, and what about ‘Have a break, have a Twix’.
The best advertising isn’t often about picking a product difference and dialling it up, it's deciding what you’re going to be known for, how you’re going to be known for it and removing anything that dilutes that.