Everyone has heard of Band Aid brand. Its a household name! No one says “Do you have a adhesive bandage?” they say “Do you have a Band Aid?”. That is why it would be crazy to compete with them.
Then a CRAZY company called Curad came around and they wanted to make adhesive bandages. You know what they did? Something super simple. They put fun characters on them and marketed towards little kids. This worked and now they have captured some of the adhesive bandage market from Band Aid!
I learned this from the most amazing book I have read in a really long time called The Purple Cow. Its a short book and will take about 5 hours to read but a must read for any business owner. I have a copy and would be happy to loan it out to you. Just let me know in the comments.
How can you be different?
- If you sell Ipods – What about selling them with pre loaded songs
- If you sell candles – What about selling smells big companies like Glade could never create
- If you sell clothes – What about selling naturally faded clothes by washing them 10 times first
I think the other thing to think about is not only how can you be different but how can you solve another problem. With the band-aid example, I think the fun characters help make the “owee” feel better. If the kids got a cut, the parent can say “well let’s have curious george help make the owee go away!”. Helps the parent in putting the band-aid on and maybe gets them to stop crying.
Very very true. Didn’t even see it in that angle.