On a recent project, that was very typical of this plot, I realised this was a reoccurring pattern, an almost disease-like condition, common especially among service brands.

The symptoms:
Your category’s brands all seem the same, they may be differentiated on the identity/communications level, but when you look at the actual perceptions (see brand vs. “brand”) of the target audiences, you find out that their perceptions are similar between competitors and pretty much correlate to the market-share of each player. It is an eerie feeling, as if no brand in the category stands for anything, even more so “owns” any positioning arena.

Epidemiology:
Common in markets where the brand experience in a category has been generic or dormant for very long – this could be due to lack of competition, or any other type of stagnation. It can also happen regardless of product innovation, because product innovation may stay purely functional if brands don’t differentiate.
I’ve found it is extremely common in emerging markets, where often many service categories used to be government owned or just heavily regulated.  A condition increasing the likelihood of this syndrome is when players try to adopt “best practices” from other markets instead of coming up with the meaningful moves necessary to shift image in their own market.

Microbiology:
The tacit structure is simple. People’s perception of their experiences is poor, and their expectations are low – so they don’t think players in the category stand for anything.
They will only switch brands on extreme negatives (e.g. a health crisis or gross-misconduct leading to a full scale public image crisis).
If you talk to them using focus groups or interviews, people in “trapped categories” will mostly talk about their fears / anger with relation to the brand experience. If you try to tap them for ideas, they will articulate their ambitions as the removal of negatives.

Roughly, in these situations, you will find customers in qualitative research divide into two groups: “Weak customers”, from marginal segments talk mainly about fears. Form the “please stop the pain“ group.
“Strong customers”, from sought-after and courted segments, will vent their anger about all players in the category. This the “go be stupid somewhere else“ group.

Ignoring this condition triggers the “generic loop complex”, which very simply works like this:

1. A brand’s category is largely generic
2. The company discover that the category, their brand included, is generic.
3. They turn to the customer for answers.
4. The customers can only speak of their generic experiences
5. The company bases any vision or “new” concept this input, mistakenly labelling it as  “customer insight”, or it borrows undifferentiated best practices from other markets as its home audience requirements seem generic.
6. Managers come up with generic briefs ; Agencies with generic solutions
7. Go to 1.

Treatment:
You have to be brave.
Look inside for answers. Another focus group just won’t do. Take a hard look at the company and realise what made this brand get so far. Then build on your best qualities. Start to communicate what you wish to stand for. Your audience can not tell you what the break-through experience should be, simply because they have never experienced it. Trying to force them into giving you an answer will just make things worse.
Only you can find what it all means.
If you want to make sense of your world, MAKE it.
Sense is made, rarely found.
Facts are found, stories are created.

VC Daniel Cohen writes:

“In my opinion, there are 2 types of marketing professionals. The majority (Call them “professionals”) focus on the technical side of marketing (setting the website, the PR tour, names, trade-shows, etc.). These people are necessary in every marketing department. However, it’s the 2nd type (the “wizards”) that make a real difference, that come up the wild & crazy ideas.”

He goes on to give three cases from Salesforce.com, Google & iPod.

Great examples, Daniel, but I have to differ on one bit.
It’s not the crazy ideas that make the 2nd type of marketers. Crazy ideas are easy to come by – you put 3 creative people in a room for 30 minutes and you’re bound to come up with a couple.

What makes those ideas remarkable is the ability to figure out what the brand/product is actually about, and then come up with ideas that embody this spirit. It’s about turning stategy into a compelling story, and about finding an oppotunity to tell that story in an engaging way, in the cases you give – through an event, a distribution idea or packaging.

If they just “painted it purple”, it wouldn’t work that well. It’s the underlying meaning that makes a difference.

Technorati Tags: apple, ipod, google, gmail, salesforce.com, marketing, purplecow, wordofmouth, branding

Some stories are so strong that they are bound to repeat across categories. This is one of them.

#1 creates a new category. He may not be the first one to come up with the idea or the product, but is the first one to leverage it for mass market.
#1 learns how to tell the market about the new product, #1 teaches people that it is good, and eventually many people are convinced. Maybe #1 even comes to stand for that idea or product. Their brand is the strongest in the category by far, there may be some small players pitching similar products, but they can’t touch #1. #1 is the one who teaches the market why the entire category is good, why it works, why it is important.
Everything is fine, until, one day, #2 comes to town.

#2’s product isn’t as revolutionary as #1’s. Maybe there’s a twist on the original idea somewhere, but sometimes that twist is more in the way they communicate about the brand. You see, #2 are quite happy with the fact that #1 is synonymous with the category, because it means #1 stands for values & attributes that are generic and shared by every player in the category – big or small.

Ironically, it is the fact that #1 built the category and told everyone what it was all about that made them generic and vulnerable.

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Many traditional branding methods, rely on values & attributes to define brands, but these tend to be similar in competitive markets. “Innovation” and “Simplicity” come to mind as current popular values. “Empowerment” and “Enabling” were very strong about 5-6 years ago in the bubble days.
Values & attributes also tend to be limiting when things get intricate, they start to merge or contradict, broaden their meaning to the point they become useless at creating focus, or worse turn to generic clichés.
Often they will just float out there in their pure bright solitude, increasingly disconnected from your organisation, your brand, what you meant for them to do. From meaning.

Stories are closer to the way people interpret, articulate and communicate (complex) meaning in most contexts.
That’s another reason one-word-equity (whether you refer to the “new” concept or the “old” one) just can’t work – The association networks people have about brands are tangled, fluid, complex things. Trying to introduce focus using this “laser” approach is hopeless – the mind will (and should) resist. Telling a story influences perception in a much subtler way.

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