The basic concept of some products predicts failure. Not because they don’t work, but because they don’t make sense. Consider Mennen’s vitamin E deodorant. That’s right, you sprayed a vitamin under your arm. It doesn’t make sense unless you want the healthiest, best-fed armpits in the nation. It quickly failed.
More often than not, people buy what they think they should have. They’re sort of like sheep, following the flock. Do most people really need a four-wheel-drive vehicle? (No.) If they did, why didn’t they become popular years ago? (Not fashionable.)
Marketing is war my friends. By now most of you have figured that out. And most of you are familiar with Marketing Warfare, a book I wrote with my former partner Al Ries on the strategy and tactics that can and should be implemented on the front lines of marketing.
With everything seemingly going wrong with the world economy, it’s not the best time for marketers to expect good news. Today is no exception my friends. I’m afraid that marketing is in a terrible mess. Hope lies in the fact that most marketing problems can be solved with a certain amount of commonsense.
Differentiation, of course, exists, but does so on the basis of a product or service actually owning values — real or perceived, rational or emotional — and occupying a real place in the consumers’ minds — beyond the consumers just being aware of them.
