I was introduced to Youngme Moon’s ‘Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd’ in 2016 by Etsy’s then CEO, Chad Dickerson. Chad encouraged everyone within the company to give it a read; it clearly had an impact on Chad personally and professionally and there are concepts that I now recognize he had attempted to install within company and brand with varying degrees of success before his abrupt departure in 2017. It’s a relatively quick read, and despite (or perhaps due to) it’s simple, straight to the point anecdotes, has left itself ingrained in my mind and continues to influence my thinking on many matters. In fact, re-reading it last year during a business trip for Amazon helped encourage me to go off and start my own company (cheers to that, Youngme!).
At its core, the book is about how our current business and marketing practices are broken, and that ultimately, we often shrink toward conformity rather than expand toward differentiation. Anyone interested in business, building a brand, or honing their own marketing principles should give it a read. I’m sharing a quick summary of my takeaways to help generate thought, and perhaps drive folks to read the book for themselves (Youngme, if there is some sort of referral system, please do let me know).
Takeaways:
Are we satiated yet?
"The age of abundance is over, I remember thinking, not because things are no longer abundant, but because abundance has lost its status as our reigning aspiration.”
Youngme describes two types of product augmentation strategies – 1) augmentation-by-addition and 2) augmentation-by-multiplication – both of which produce oversaturation that causes consumers to go numb. Augmentation-by-addition is a strategy in which product marketers continually bolster their product’s existing benefits, often times so much so that it becomes comical (i.e. “New” > “New and improved” > “Better than ever” > “Now with even more!”). Augmentation-by-multiplication is a strategy in which product marketers will launch new, specialized versions of their products to meet the needs of more specific segments (i.e. Coke > Diet Coke > Cherry Coke > Caffeine Free Coke > Diet Coke with Lemon). In an oversaturated environment, careful elimination of benefits and refining product use cases can be refreshing and appreciated by consumers (and as I’ve written about previously, can spur business growth).
Focusing on competitors creates conformity.
“Our competitive myopia has spawned a second, related problem as well: It has created a dynamic in which our tendency to mirror (or better yet, to one-up) the movements of our competitors has started to become reflexive…When someone shows us a graph or a chart or a spreadsheet that display areas in which we are lagging our business rivals, it is almost impossible for us to resist to the urge to play catch-up.”
Industry reports produced by the likes of Forrester provide a tangible example of this – one can literally see and measure the distance between them and ‘leaders’ in a given category. I can’t help but think about LinkedIn behaviors here as well, and its influence on conformity. When did listing your actual job title become out of fashion? Why is it that everyone is a “leader”, “proven sales driver”, “growth guru”, etc. (no offense to those that have headlines that read like this – just an observation!). This slow, tidal-like shift has unfolded over the last couple of years and it’s my belief that our obsession with trying to keep up and compete against one another has been an accelerator.
Marketers are predictable.
“Where consumers are inconsistent in their attitude toward progress, product marketers are consistent. Where consumers are ambivalent in their regard for change, product marketers are unambivalent. And where consumers are fickle in their posture toward product evolution, product marketers are predictable. Remarkably predictable. Extraordinarily predictable.”
Yep, it’s true. Look around at the language used to describe a product of any sort (from SaaS to CPG) and it’s remarkably familiar. Same goes with product enhancements and launch announcements. As we continue to focus on competitors and where we sit within a graph, we fail to stray away from what has been perceived as working; rather, we double down on what’s comfortable. Like nearly all product marketers, I am often guilty of this!
We’re all in need of a pause.
“To be a business professional in this day and age is to be awash of things to do. There are product lines to manage and distribution systems to be tamed; there are pricing algorithms to refine and merchandising metrics to be met. The world moves fast and so we run hard, scrambling to stay on top of the machinery that makes it all hum. And yet as I’ve described in the previous pages, in all too many cases, the end result of all of this sound and fury is nothing more than a herdlike incrementalism, a kind of incrementalism that seldom manages to achieve distinction, of any sort.”
Take time to pause and reflect on a daily basis. We are all forced to move fast due to the fantastical boost of productivity provided to us by modern-day technology. We manage products, brands, processes, etc. with immense speed and momentum and it’s all too easy to get lost in the execution of it all. We are all being herded. Following familiar patterns and processes (colloquially referred to as “proven”) is comfortable. While these processes are likely to produce expected outcomes, they are unlikely to deliver truly unique (or to use another colloquialism, 0 to 1) results. Admittedly, I struggle with this, which is why I think I’m so taken by the concept.
There is still art to the science, maybe more so than ever.
“If we only pay attention to things that we can measure, we will only pay attention to the things that are easily measurable. And in the process, we will miss a lot.”
You can’t differentiate yourself, a product, or business without making decisions that go against what others are doing; and what others are doing is measured and predictable. We should all strive to throw it in reverse or take a sharp left, even if it’s not entirely measurable. Because if it’s not measurable, the chances are it hasn’t already been done.
So, what does Youngme think is next, what will the next successful brand look like?
1. They will offer something that is hard to come by. Scarcity always whets demand. What Moon calls “reverse brands” are mindful of proliferation and abundance and tender us something scarce. In the world of Amazon and Netflix and their endless selection – what is left? Therein lies the opportunity for niche brands.
2. They will be committed to a big idea. They won’t just be different in a little way, they will different in a BIG way. Newcomers with less experiences are liberated from rational thinking. Difference is deviance and commitment to the unprecedented.
3. They will be intensely human. This is where Moon thinks marketers will play a critical role, as marketers are uniquely positioned to bring a human touch to companies. Companies need to build a brand that communicates human values in an increasingly AI driven economy. Doing so will help them stand out and build strong connections with consumers. If your company went out of business tomorrow, would anybody really miss it?
Hope these have piqued your interest in some way or got you thinking differently, which apparently is…well, hard to do.