I won't be making any further reference to Dungeons and Dragons. This is as close to an absolute as you'll get from me today,sorry. Also *apologies to the late Marilyn Monroe for butchering the title of her hit song "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" from the1953 film "Gentlemen prefer Blondes".
*Prologue:
1) There are no absolutes, successful marketing is an ever changing context sport (did I come up with that ,or did I borrow from someone else?).
2) Observe humbly and broadly ,Learn, experiment, apply,learn;repeat.
*Introduction
Its all become a bit heated again on Twitter , so here's another unsolicited, resolutely neutral and academically uninformed take,based entirely on my packaged goods experience, which spans two centuries.
I was stirred from my sick bed ( did I mention I have Covid yet?) by that hothead and seeker of justice Thom Binding @Slightly_Random poking at another favorite Marketing Twitter Sore,namely the meaning and value of differentiaton vs distinctiveness. I'm deeply indebted to the articles by prof. Mark Ritson @markritson in Marketing Week @MarketingWeekEd ,and I have a flawed understanding of How Brands Grow 1.0 by Prof. Byron Sharp @ProfByron. I also read the recent LinkedIn post by Prof Jenni Romaniuk on the topic, and agree with her conclusion .
The parameters of discussion seem to revolve around the following areas of debate:
*Definition of the terminology is as usual featuring strongly:
The meanings and thus the differences between them are in the roots of the words themselves. Please do your own work people. I think they're actually family.
*The utility of either in different parts of the marketing landscape
This is for me the interesting area. Contributors to this thread have broken this down into a number of constituent parts: Brand vs product, and marketing and operations as opposed to the comms world.
I think we need as ever to step back from our professional interest in marketing and be more focused on being the voice of the consumer , for that is our job as marketers.
Wise people have been telling us for a while now that actually consumers aren't generally that interested in our brands , or our ads, and I wager no amount of prawn cocktail snacks and fizzy beverages in a late night focus group will really make them interested in what us marketers do behind closed doors , never mind argue about D&D.
So for me , for the record , in packaged goods from a consumer first perspective and working backwards and away from the consumer into the belly of the beast you firstly need to be available, then to stand out ie mental and physical availability ( distinctive get up and comms );if possible better somehow across one of the 4 Ps, not necessarily different , and then if you can be different in a meaningful way that's a good thing. If you're selling blocks of cheddar say then the margins for differentiaton are slim, but distinctiveness is certainly possible.
The importance placed on differentiaton by some marketers, especially I would guess in packaged goods ,warrants a little explanation. Brand owners and retailers alike ( who still overwhelmingly control physical access to consumers ) demand improved odds on any and all lines stocked improving overall sales and category market share, not to mention profit ( did someone mention profit?) . The more a product and brand is relevantly different from its nearest competition the more pricing power and profit there is for the brand owner and therefore that line becomes unsubstitutable . In packaged goods a large brand will benefit from distinctiveness and of course habit /systems 1 behavior, irrespective of whether it is also different or not than a lesser known competitor.
Launching me too products or brands is generally a short cut to nowhere in an open market landscape, with a) retailers having fairly brutal minimum sales and profit threshold hurdles to be reached within a limited time frame, with twice yearly reviews and delistings a feature in the UK at least; b) or unless the me too brand owner is a market leading brand leveraging its market or share of voice dominance to copy the innovation of others.
So, differentiaton is a good goal if meeting unmet needs, but distinctiveness is a must. If you don't stand out simply you won't be noticed or bought.
Examples of some brands with products which had both differentiaton and distinctiveness : Vienetta, Marmite,Ferrero Rocher.
Bonne Maman and Nutella deserve a special mention for distinctiveness without any technical wizardry.
I can't really think of examples of successful differentiaton without distinctiveness in an open market, but please do give me examples.
D&D in brands you ask? In some categories the brand carries a heavier 'look at me' burden than arguably the product , fashion and luxury goods spring to mind. I've worked in strategic brand development, in packaged foods ,and was regularly confronted by what I still consider if unqualified and unchallenged as the siren call of the mermaid luring us onto the rocks theory which says 'none of our competitors is in space x, we can own it, we should go into it'....
Where would you place brands like : Tony's chocolonely? For me it's both distinctive in get up and tone of comms and differentiated in brand positioning. product is fairly standard chocolate albeit in jawbreaking profile of chunks. Body Shop in its founder days was both distinctive in getup and product as well as differentiated
When it comes to the role of D&D in comms, history suggests that the consumer is most likely to notice and be interested ie comms more effective when messages focus on what benefits accrue to them by choosing our brand and product , duly presented in a distinctive and entertaining manner, rather than a focus on features in isolation . Topically and perhaps fortuitously I do not work in the airline business which is clearly a very different market to mayonnaise... and no I have not reinvented features and benefits thank you...
The debate about the primordial importance of differentiaton or not is unlikely to be definitively answered, because no absolutes.... Only one company in my personal memory database put differentiated Innovation so high up the list , and that was 3M the inventors of Post It notes , where it was at one time reportedly mandated that executives spend 30% of their time on breakthrough Innovation projects.
In conclusion I believe that for distinctiveness and differentiaton the more you have the better , just like distinctive assets. But ultimately of the two distinctiveness is more critical to business success.
I'm going to go and probably throw up now ,thanks to covid and Crohn's disease holding a simultaneous rave in my body. I hope reading this is much easier on you than it was for me writing this ...
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