When Rosser Reeves first proposed the Unique Selling Proposition many decades ago now, the world was a very different place. Products still had the potential to actually be different, advertising was largely confined to mainstream channels and brands were, for the most part, identifiers.
For some time now, brands have pursued difference. Spurred on initially by Jack Trout, they’ve positioned, disrupted, innovated…all with that elusive goal in mind. To stand out and stand apart from their competitors. Benefits, positioning, pyramids, strategies…a lot of time and energy has gone into trying to help brands achieve difference. Everyone’s been on that quest to become a Purple Cow.
I have written about creating “category-of-one” brands before.
Everybody wants a brand that’s different. The irony of that statement is intentional. It belies the conservative manner in which most brands approach competitive difference.
It is an indisputable fact that purchasing in product and service categories obeys the law of Double Jeopardy. This is – stated at its most simplistic – an empirical generalization that higher market share brands achieve stronger customer loyalty than lower market share brands in the same category. But the thing that always intrigues me is whether all brands obey the Double Jeopardy law to the same degree all of the time.
