Going beyond the bleeding obvious

By Guy Cookson, marketing director, Hotfoot.

Without a point of difference any business is vulnerable to being substituted for a competitor. But many companies fail to do much more than state the bleeding obvious.

They tell us they offer 'end-to-end services', 'best-in-class products' and 'global solutions.'

Such meaningless phrases tell us nothing about what makes a business special.

Ad executive Rory Sutherland recently gave a great example of how to do things differently: "When the renovated St Pancras station reopened. there was a very clever PR campaign which did not talk about trains at all: instead, it trumpeted that the station contained 'the longest champagne bar in Europe.'"

Writer Bob Hoffman gives another good example when recalling Apple's launch of the iPod: "They didn't give it the vanilla 'global World Class MP3 Player' treatment. They said '1,000 Songs In Your Pocket.' They were specific."

Even the smallest business can use the same effective tactics. On one freezing evening recently I drove past a tiny village pub with a handwritten sign outside that simply said: 'Roaring log fire.' I did a U-turn.