Good stories need good story-telling
Make your differentiation relevant
Years back I learnt about the relationship between relevance and differentiation. With access to the Brand Asset Valuator database, I caught on that relevance correlated with consideration and volume of market share, whilst differentiation correlated with choice, premium pricing and loyalty.
In other words, you have to offer something people want in order to gain market share, but you must offer something perceived as distinctive to gain share of mind and heart.
Computer-speak isn't the way people talk
Old news. Why mention it? Because, these fundamental principles were established in an analogue age, when service was something experienced face-to-face not face-to-screen.
These days, a business’s services are generally enabled by if not delivered by technology. So it’s tempting for brand marketers to talk lovingly and at length about the technology rather than the service, and to fall-back upon stock phrases and technical jargon to describe their brands. I’m thinking of terms such as “seamless back-end integration”, “high-throughput, low-latency” and the perennial “customer-centric solutions”.
Relatable and readable
In straining for currency and relevance they are submerging their brands in a glub of industry-speak, watering down their potential differentiation. They’d be better advised to use more human and frankly more interesting language. It’s not enough to have a good story, you have to tell it well to attract and impress an audience.
Imagine if classic literature were re-written by a digitally-native marcomms squad, proud of their product and prejudiced towards bot-speak. What would that sound like?
“Bleeding-edge research - endorsed by thought-leaders globally - provides empirical evidence that a significant majority of high-net worth singleton males have unfulfilled needs with regards to forming officially sanctioned lifetime relationships”
Written by Alec Rattray
See how Chromatic has helped brands to develop distinctive stories:
