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May 2009
The Whack!
Marty Neumeier calls it a “zag”, in his book appropriately
entitled Zag.*5 I call “The Whack” because
it has always been like an eye-opening smack to the
forehead. “The Whack” is the defining moment of
enlightenment for a brand direction that emerges through the
research process. It provides the radical differentiation
that will enable a client to take their company in a
direction that will build a profitable brand. Sometimes,
usually in fact, it’s quite simple. Other times, it is not.
To quote Neumeier, “When everybody zigs, zag.” *6
At BrandVision my job has always been to take a concept and
turn it into cash. That in a nutshell is the marketing
process. I try to take that a step further with a focus on
branding. The clients I deal with have always been about
long-term success. Therefore, most of them truly appreciate
the value of building a strong brand in the marketplace.
After all, a strong brand simplifies one’s life. A solid
brand makes life easier for consumers. They know what to
expect from a specific brand and gravitate toward that brand
as long as the resulting product or service continues to
live up to that expectation. They will even pay more…go out
of their way…wait longer to get it and even recommend it
freely to others—often to the point of advocacy. That is
successful marketing. That is successful branding. That is
the result of a good “Whack”!
A simplified version of the formula that I work from simply
states, “Distinction that meets Relevance with Consistency
and Continuity will build a profitable Brand”. Within that
formula are four important components to experiencing the
Whack!
Distinction
Different is not just good, it is vital if you are going to
stand out in today’s marketplace and truly compete.
Regardless of the industry that you are contending in,
chances are there are a few rivals seeking the same dollars
and market share that you want. Your company has to be
positioned uniquely in a way that creates more than a
difference. A marked Distinction will provide an equally
distinct push versus an adversary.
Preferably, the Distinction that you are looking for will
not just nudge you a lap or two ahead of the nearest
competitor, but will put you in a different pool altogether.
Many business owners think that a defensible position is the
goal and the ultimate key to creating Distinction. It is
not. That is often a reactive strategy. Such an approach
focuses on adding value, but often forgoes the need for true
innovation that will create a market where competition
becomes obsolete. As author’s W. Chan Kim and Renee
Mauborgne point out in Blue Ocean Strategy, it is the
latter that will matter.
“We call it value innovation because instead of
focusing on beating the competition, you focus
on
making the competition irrelevant by creating a leap
in value for buyers and your company, thereby
opening up new and uncontested market space.
…value without innovation tends to focus on value
creation on an incremental scale, something that
improves value but is not sufficient to make you
stand out in the marketplace. Value innovation is a
new way of thinking about and executing strategy
that results in the creation of a blue ocean (rather
than a bloodied red ocean) and a break from the
competition.”*7
Excellent thoughts. After all, as Reis and Trout point out
in The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, if you lead a
category, set up a new category in which you can lead.*8
What if
you can't create that blue, blood-red, free ocean? Stay
tuned...
(CONTINUED NEXT MONTH).
© BrandVision Marketing.
2009. Matthew Scott Trueblood. All rights reserved.
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