Brand Differentiation
Brand differentiation is a much discussed topic – and rightly so. The ability to have your audience acurately retell what your brand stands for, is a position of power. This assumes that a compelling, value-adding proposition, superior to the competition, is embodied in your brand positioning of course.
In the first decade of branded milk marketing in Australia when significant advertising budgets supported the marketing of milk under the Victorian Dairy Industry Authority (VDIA), consumers were able to play back in research highly accurate representations of the characteristics of the brands of Big M, Rev and Skinny Milk. This clear perception of what the brands represented help engender strong consumer loyalty from their audiences. Flavoured milk sales attained levels of popularity never seen before or again, with Big M achieving sales to one quarter the level of the massively advertised and longstanding Coca Cola. Support for Rev and Skinny was so strong that a price premium was able to be introduced, moving these ‘modified’ milks (of lower fat content), 15% above the price of regular milk, without a glitch in the growing sales trend. The milk category has over the decades since, fragmented so much due to the introduction of and now dominance of low margin supermarket house brands that advertising of proprietary brands is no longer viable.
The fundimental SWOT
A starting point in establishing differentiation in the brand is to interrogate the competitive environment using the simple SWOT – strengths, weaknesses,opportunites and threats (or risks) for your company and separately, for each of its competitors. This process shines a light of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each and may help identify areas of opportunity. Add to this a separate review of competitors features, benefits and claims and valuable points of differentiation may ‘rise to the top’ or clarity will be put on the need for innovation or the introduction of a persuasive additional element to the product. Conducting workshops on differentiation is a Giddyup Service.