How Do You Handle the Brand-Catagory Paradox?

How do you stand out while fitting in?

On the one hand, all brands need to deliver the category basics — the “category drivers” or “core category benefits.” And as categories mature, brands copy each other’s best features and talk about the same benefits. They even start to copy each others’ personality & advertising & tactics.

Eventually all power drills have magnets to hold screws, belt hooks, and variable-speed triggers. Eventually all all-purpose cleaners are in an ergonomic spray bottle, cut grease, and — since Covid — kill 99.97% of germs. (All in a nice lemon scent.)

On the other hand, all brands then have to find ways to stand out too. At the very least, they need a logo & colors that are obviously different. (Unless you’re Aldi or other copycat store brands selling “Formula 404.”) And then they try whatever they can to eke out some sort of difference or advantage.

This is the Brand-Category Paradox: how to deliver category basics but in distinct, branded ways. Fortunately there are lots of Levers you can pull to help handle it.

But some lessons:

🍊 Repetition helps. (Not rocket science, but still nice to see.)

🍊 Audio mentions are powerful. Combo mentions are even more powerful.

🍊 Repetition helps.

🍊 Also, repetition helps.