Only is lonely

"The road to becoming 'the only ...' is lonely" – @DamilareStark

Praise,

I initially intended to write about something else. I was going to start a people appreciation series, but this morning, I saw that tweet by Stark and it succinctly described my thoughts for a very long time about branding.

How are you, by the way? Did you sleep well? I didn't. It's 3:30AM now and I have some tasks to quite finish. Yes, I know I should rest. I try, and it's all I can do for now. I'll tell you when I do rest. Thanks for asking tho.

Lol. You are so thoughtful, Praise.

Distinction. Positioning. Differentiation.

When we discuss brands, products and services, we talk about how we can sell them in compelling ways to the customer. Let's provide them options and give reasons why it should be us and not the next person. Let us be different, so that we're not confused with another business or product. Let's find somewhere only us can be king.

It is never going to go away and it has raised thousands of successful brands, even more, also caused the failures of thousands more. But it is not going anywhere.

It is not just a trend to want to be unique and number one. It is a human feature. It is part of what makes us human. Build relevance through monopoly. It is why we want to be the best, fastest, brightest. Companies want to be leading, fast-growing, most-innovative. It is a race for relevance, not survival.

Ah yes! Survival. That is what we were sold on. If you're not different, you can't win. You can't last long—which is true.

True, but not entirely.

Collaboration. Partnership. Empathy.

These are the new words thrown around in the business space. Work together to achieve larger impact and share the spoils, while maintaining ... no, focusing on what makes them different.

Brand and marketing pros know about "the Only statement". It refers to a sentence that defines clearly what only you can do in a crowd of individuals. As ideal as this is, it isn't realistic.

What makes a strong brand, really? Is it how "only" you are? Is it how different you are? What is the pattern in the strong brands around us today?

Take Apple for example. Do you think there is anything ONLY about Apple? For everything they sell, there is a competitor brand that beats it. Yet, why am I typing on an M1?

Coca-cola is another. They're not sweetest soft drink. Heck! The drinks, of recent, are less in quality because of how retailers store them. Yet, the community is immensely strong.

Pepsi is one too. A soft drink like Coca-cola. What is ONLY about Pepsi's brand?

Look at your brand. What is ONLY about you?

Brands win because they're human—authentic, relatable, recognisable and clear. Any brand.

True differentiation is borne out of the experience the customers have with the brand. Think of it like this.

If you lived 24h each with two people, doing the exact same thing with both of them. Your response, albeit positive, would be different. That difference wasn't because they said they were different. It came from your interpretation of your experience with them.

When I started brand strategy, I always had issues with 'positioning statements' cos I always felt they were fake and idealist—statements that described a perfect state.

Understanding who you are as a company, and who you sell to as customers are the two basic building blocks for brand equity. What makes you different, how different you are, where they'll find you builds on that.

Because if all you chase is being the only person, you'll lack excitement—the kind you need to connect with customers.

Storytelling—the art of communicating who you are to who you sell to; the bridge between your personality and your customers' preferences. Once you've answered the questions "who are we?" and "who are they?", the next question, for building your brand, is "how do they know who we are?"

Stripped down, this is the skeletal framework of any brand strategy. Bogus English means nothing if those three questions are not answered. More importantly, you will not find true differentiation nor build the right partnerships either.

You'll just end up being alone.

What do I mean?

Being ONLY isn't being different.

Ciao.

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