What Really Matters

Differentiation

Winning value propositions must be both relevant to customers and differentiated from the competition.

To create one, identify and rank the brand or offering attributes your market intelligence team identifies from customer research, and then have your competitive intelligence team assess these against competition. Organize these into four categories.

• Neutrals. Features and functionality that are irrelevant to customers
• Antes. Features and functionality that are important to customers, but provided by key competitors at similar price points and quality.
• Drivers. Benefits and attributes that are important to customers, and which are highly differentiated from competition.
• Fool’s Gold. Benefits and attributes that do not matter to customers.

You may be shocked at the results – the research may show that something everyone thought was a key point of differentiation is at best an Ante or worse, a Neutral. And you may sadly find that you've been wasting precious resources promoting benefits and attributes that don’t matter.

Clearly, you want to emphasize the Drivers. But also ask what you can do with the others. For example, a recent ad by TD Bank emphasized the difficulty of finding pens that worked in other banks (and often on chains so you can’t “steal” them). TD Bank recognized a customer service and branding opportunity and now stocks logoed pens and even encourages you to take them. The question is, of course, whether this is a Driver or Fool’s Gold, but given the lack of real differentiation between retail banks, a small gesture such as this contributes to and reinforces the overall brand experience.

Another example. Road warriors on overnight flights find it difficult to see their computer keyboards once the lights dim, even with the overhead light on. I experienced this for years, until I found a simple solution on my Thinkpad (simultaneously press Fn-PgUp – the bottom left and top right keys of the keyboard – on older models, or Fn-Space on newer models). The interesting thing is how I learned this. In a meeting with a number of IBM executives where, with the lights dimmed for a presentation, one executive’s Thinkpad had a glowing light. He explained how it worked to this seasoned group, many with decades of experience – none of us knew about it! Again, a legitimate question is whether this is Fool’s Gold, but in the commoditized PC business, it is also legitimate to ask whether it could be turned into a Driver.

Try this test. Ask an objective analyst pick out the key messages from the communications (ads, websites, social media, etc.) of you and your key competitors, present these anonymously to decision-makers and ask them to distinguish who is who.

Now get to work on creating real differentiation.

Next: Effective Communications Briefs