Making a Difference in Marketing : The Foundation of Competitive Advantage

Establishing a difference is the lynchpin of marketing. It can be achievedin many ways, often not overtly competitive. The results are often both magical and powerful, such as changing the price of a little regarded fish from £0.05 a kilo to £1.00 at little expense. But, as with many other areas which have great value, this potency has resulted in marketing sometimes being shrouded in complexity. This book hopes to cut through these complexities and emphasise the pivotal nature of differentiation, based on the many cases histories cited and the advances in the related fields referred to, particularly the work of psychologists such as Daniel Kahneman.

Establishing a difference is the lynchpin of marketing. It can be achieved in many ways. The results can be magical and powerful: such as increasing, with little expense, the price of a little regarded fish from £0.15 a kilo to £1.00. As with many other disciplines which have great value, this potency has often resulted in the discussion of marketing being prey to increasing complexity. This frequently intimidates those marketing could help. Often it is due to the touting of supposedly new paradigms, given plausibility by conveniently invented metrics, and an emphasis on the rational and conscious over the emotional and unconscious, despite the latter aspects appearing to be the basis for much choice.

This imbalance has been highlighted by recent insights from psychology, neurology and behavioural economics. Rather than simply embracing these advances, the focus of marketing has been on additional layers of intricacy and a weighting of emphasis towards means of communication, further distancing marketing from its base.

This book aims to cut through to the pivotal role of differentiation, illustrated by case histories and the advances in the related fields referred to, particularly the work of psychologists such as Daniel Kahneman. Unlike much writing on marketing, it has tried to follow Einstein’s advice to be "as simple as possible, but no simpler".