Ditch brand differentiation and try this instead

Take the pressure off your brand — ditch the need to be different and try this instead.

Each week I do our grocery shopping and on our list is a particular salad dressing I have on my salad for lunch just about every workday. There is no dressing like it on the market — I’ve looked.

Though there used to be one made by another brand. If that brand still sold that product I’d probably pick theirs over the one I buy now purely because the packaging is far prettier and it’s a more known brand. But those f**kers stopped making their version of it and now I’m left with the only choice and an average looking bottle — first world problems, right?

However, if both existed and the preferred brand was out of stock, I’d still buy the alternative brand (the one I buy today).

Three things are going on here.

The first is the concept of differentiation — the salad dressing has no equal in offering or availability to satiate my need for the flavour I want in my salad. Gimme gimme gimme.

The second is distinctiveness — when there was another brand offering the same type of dressing, I picked that one because the packaging was distinct, it was a brand name I was familiar with and it’s a known brand in Australia, and I’ve used their products for years…