What have Amazon, Airbnb, Uber, Twitter and Ebay got in common? OLIVER Planner, Craig Harries shares his thoughts on why the most valuable brands aren’t different but useful.

“$500 for a phone! … you can buy a Motorolla phone for $100”

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft talking about the launch of the iPhone

 

What have Amazon, Airbnb, Uber, Twitter and Ebay got in common?

They all own their markets, having no major competitors of any significance.

They did this by solving a problem for consumers brilliantly, rather than trying to be different. So when we want to buy a book online there’s only one place to go, or grab a ride home, or broadcast your ideas. These brands stepped in to challenge conventional thinking, and have continually evolved, so their customers have no reason to look elsewhere.

What excites me about these developments is the fact that I feel that my existing ways of thinking about brands and brand building are being constantly challenged, and that’s definitely a good thing, but maybe that’s just me.

The reality is that generally our brands occupy such a small share of people’s attention, that the opportunity is limited, which makes the quest for continual usefulness is so critical.

The speed with which brands can switch from being valued to becoming irrelevant is so frighteningly fast that it has been likened to the battlefield; things can change in an instant, and how you respond becomes literally a matter of life and death.

To say that we have entered a new phase of branding feels like a cliché, but it is worth considering how far we have come to fully understand the magnitude of this change.

Around the middle of the last century a brand was a promise of consistent quality, and back then being able to make baked beans or cornflakes look and taste the same every time was a major feat in itself.

Then it became easier to do so, so branding evolved to focus on identity and experience. But this was a manufactured reality wrapped around largely undifferentiated products – people started to see through the charade.

This is a painful lesson the big 4 supermarkets have learned to their cost. Austerity forced consumers to consider what’s really important to them, and doing the basics well in a fair and transparent way has made brands like Aldi, Lidl and Poundland more useful and appealing than the established leaders. Yet these brands don’t have a home delivery service or price checks – they don’t need them because they focused on what’s important to consumers, rather than what they wanted to tell them.

So it’s not just about tech and apps, it’s about doing things that make people’s lives better, and who wouldn’t want that?

I would argue that we are now in the age of ‘usefulness’. Forrester recently reported that in a world where consumers are empowered and knowledgeable, “brands that offer personalised services across human and digital touch-points and continually evolve their offering will win”.

In the most vibrant sector of business; Tech Start-ups, having a great idea is only half the battle, if it’s not relevant or useful your venture will fail.

So rather than starting out by saying “how can we differentiate our brand?”, ask yourself “how can my brand be more useful?” give it the ‘What’s In It For Me’ (WIFM) test; “what are we really offering that’s going to make a difference to our audience?” and see where that takes you.