In a highly competitive market, where various brands are jostling for space, differences among brands begin to blur; it becomes difficult to offer the consumer/customer a differentiated product benefit. Advertising becomes the only differentiator in such cases. Sometimes advertising is used to highlight a certain product feature or benefit which competing brands have not thought of. I recall a brilliant advertising campaign for Godrej refrigerators which ran in the late 1980s or perhaps in the early 1990s, the focus of the campaign was that Godrej refrigerators used PUF (polyurethane foam) as insulation, sales of Godrej refrigerators zoomed as a result of this campaign; the fact was that PUF was used by Godrej’s competitors as well, but only Godrej was the one to talk about it and that made the difference.
Yes, a brand has to be perceived as different by consumers/customers, but the brand cannot be different just for the sake of being different, there should be a strong consumer benefit associated with it; or else why would the consumer part with her/his money to try out the product?
Marketing and advertising people go to ridiculous lengths trying to make consumers believe that their brands/products are different; two recent ad campaigns come to my mind, please read on:
Aliva Crackers
