Differentiation that matters
Marketing is about two things. First, the marketing concept: 'Marketing is not a specialised business activity. It is the whole enterprise seen from the customer's point of view.'1 Firms make money by profitably meeting customers' needs better than the competition. Second, differentiation: marketing's role is to increase the brand's distinctiveness in customers' minds, countering the commoditising pressure of competition. Firms make money by being seen to be different.
Many marketers have lost sight of the first...