The story of marketing can be told as the progression from commodities to brands. Strong brands give customers confidence, and usually command a premium price.
You will probably have seen the film Trading Places, where the lives of the main characters are manipulated by the shady commodity traders the Duke brothers. I won’t spoil the ending, but commodities form part of the story arc. Early on in the film is a classic scene where the Dukes explain to Eddie Murphy’s character Billy Ray Valentine what commodities are.
The examples in the film are coffee, bacon, wheat and gold, but mineral water, petrol and sugar are other examples. A kilo of wheat is indistinguishable from another kilo of wheat, and this is what makes it a commodity. They are identical and everyone would buy the cheapest kilo of flour.
Check your supermarket or high street and in each case commodities are sold with strong branding to give the impression of difference where there might be none, or to explain differences that might otherwise be imperceptible. For example, your flour might be organic.
Content has a large and growing role in telling the stories that make brands more like brands and less like commodities. This is important because commodities are sold on price alone, while brands can set a premium for their product or service.
Take three examples. Petrol is largely identical wherever it is sold. Petrol does tend to be sold by brands like Shell, BP and so on. Supermarkets have been very successful at undermining these brands by offering their own petrol, at a lower price. The consumer has been left with the question: why pay more? Petrol brands have been experimenting with new ways to reach consumers, such as with loyalty campaigns, to respond.
Looking down the other end of the telescope, take the PC industry. These products are by nature not commodities – they are designed and manufactured, and are subsequently branded when sold. With the notable exception of Apple, the many different PC manufacturers have failed to persuade people that they are sufficiently different, and have become, in effect, commodities, competing on price. Apple uses many of the same components as its PC competitors but is perceived as an absolutely premium product and charges considerably more as a result.
Lastly, consider Ryanair, which attempted to do commoditise an entire industry that relied on brands by stripping back everything to the absolute base essentials. Ryanair was the ‘own brand’ of airlines; recently it has decided to begin marketing for the first time, and add value to its brand.
Content-marketing and the mark of distinction
If we can learn anything from these examples, it is that your content strategy should focus on making your service, your product, your offering, more distinctive. Some principles to remember when planning a content campaign:
Know who you are
Jack Daniel’s is the leading brand of American whiskey, selling more by volume than its competitors. This is in spite of the product not actually conforming to the term ‘Bourbon’, which is the most recognised term for whiskey in the USA. Bourbon has protected status in a similar way to, say, Champagne in France. Jack Daniel’s is made in the same way as Bourbon is, but made in the wrong place – in Tennessee, not Kentucky. Over years and years, Jack Daniel’s has talked-up the craftsmanship and independence of the product. Today, it not only sells more than its competitors but even charges a premium. Consumers feel that difference in the brand. What distinguishes your brand?
Sell your expertise, not the product
The fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market has highly branded products, but these products tend to compete on price. As with petrol, this has been a great opportunity for own-brands to enter the market. Digital marketing and content has suddenly opened the FMCG sector to new ways of selling. For example, take Cleanipedia, developed for Unilever’s brands, or Reckitt Benckiser’s ambitious Stain Solver for the Vanish brand.
Make yourself indispensable
Some brands have been able to almost transcend the usual tussle between brands and commodities. Such brands also often emerge into the vernacular. Examples include ‘Coke’, which eclipses the whole cola market, Google, which has become a verb, and Disney, which so exemplifies a particular genre of film. It’s already almost impossible to imagine a world without these brands. OK, it’s difficult to simply achieve this for your brand, but it is possible to strive for this in your market, and content can help.
Your track record
Your company is good at what it does. Perhaps the classic example here is IBM. Many people still believe that IBM manufacture computers. They still have a profitable mainframe division, but IBM is essentially a consultancy today, and the thread that has taken them from one business to another is excellence. IBM today is a very content-heavy business, shouting about what it does and how it does it. It’s compelling.
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