There has by no means been an even bigger second in historical past when model differentiation was extra essential. The channels we relied on for development are saturated and more and more much less efficient. And with AI altering how folks search and make shopping for selections, the race to face out has by no means been extra brutal.
The manufacturers on the high of the meals chain are these we affiliate with a selected downside. For instance, if I would like trainers, I’m going to Hoka. For skincare, I’m a Byoma girlie, and if I’m craving apple juice, Harmless cures my thirst.
However how do these manufacturers differentiate in a crowded market area? What makes them so memorable?
On this article, I’ll share my favourite examples of corporations smashing model differentiation and provide you with actionable recommendations on stand out from the gang.
Desk of Contents
What’s model differentiation?
Model differentiation is the way you carve out psychological actual property in a market the place everybody‘s screaming for consideration. It’s not simply your emblem, your tagline, or your mission assertion. It is the precise cause somebody chooses you over a competitor when each merchandise may technically remedy their downside.
Model Differentiation Examples: 6 Highly effective Methods to Differentiate Your Model
1. Revolut: Construct a product folks can’t shut up about.
Differentiator: Product-led development that turns clients into advocates
In a earlier Moz Whiteboard Friday, I mentioned a very powerful technique to construct model authority is to have a fantastic product. There’s no workaround for this. An ideal product retains folks in-app and coming again. That’s why I really like Revolut.
After I moved to the UK in 2022 and wanted a banking resolution, all my pals pointed me to the app. Revolut provided multicurrency accounts backed by frictionless banking, and I’d by no means seen something prefer it.
It looks like an on a regular basis app that mixes banking, funding, and options you’d solely get on a typical bank card.
An ideal product feels two steps forward of you. It anticipates your wants, presents options earlier than you ask, and will get you from A to Z with ease.
Right here’s how Revolut differentiates from different neobanks:
- Frictionless UX.
- Intuitive budgeting instruments.
- Multicurrency accounts.
- A plethora of funding choices you’d often discover on BlackRock or Vanguard.
- Cashback presents and buy safety much like a bank card.
- All-in-one wealth administration app disrupting conventional banking and funding sectors.
The Branding Differentiation Lesson
No quantity of promoting or marketing spend can save a foul product. Spend money on your core expertise. Construct options that meet the usual, and go additional with future-forward innovation that retains folks within the app.
2. Higher Path: Win with unforgettable content material.
Differentiator: A singular mix of schooling, design, and storytelling
I first heard about Better Trail’s content within the TOFU community when David Broderick used them for instance of intuitive content material. So, I took a glance, and I used to be totally impressed.
Google is beginning to floor longer solutions via AI Overviews and AI Mode, cannibalizing visitors that might often go to web sites. Higher Path, a assessment website that depends upon visitors and commissions for survival, is doing one thing completely different to draw and maintain customers.
Right here’s how Higher Path differentiates from different assessment websites:
The UX is superb, and I really like the way it makes the content material look extra like {a magazine} than a weblog publish. If you wish to shortly scan the suggestions, they have you with skim.
Want a little bit bit extra element? Select medium. And if in case you have time to learn your entire factor, they have a 14,000-word banger for you.
Higher Path skips all of the pointless website positioning optimization of “what’s” and “.” The positioning as a substitute goes straight to an summary of mountain climbing shoe superlatives, so you may shortly make a selection.
When shopping for a mountain climbing shoe, you search for particular options, like consolation, foot safety, and sturdiness. Higher Path makes use of a scoring system to charge every characteristic, making it straightforward to decide on based mostly on what’s essential to you.
Principally, they’ve supplied the data folks search for when buying a product and eliminated limitations that forestall a sale, multi functional go.
The Branding Differentiation Lesson
You’re not going to capture and hold attention in case your content material seems like everybody else’s. You want a format that feels contemporary and distinctive.
Anticipate the selections persons are making an attempt to make and provides them solutions earlier than they even know what to ask. Lastly, construction your content material so it really works for scanners, researchers, and energy customers alike.
3. Gong: Humanize your model with inside consultants.
Differentiator: Turning inside SMEs into multi-channel influencers
Revenue Intelligence is a closely saturated area of interest with many opponents offering comparable characteristic units. Gong sits inside that area of interest as one of the vital costly choices. So, the model differentiates and captures market share by prioritizing relationships and human-led conversations, not simply pricing or options.
I haven’t seen one other model lean into LinkedIn the best way Gong has with its inside SMEs. The primary time I heard about Gong was via Udi Ledergor’s LinkedIn content material. He was so participating that I had to take a look at his profile.
Since then, I’ve seen different internal SMEs, like Brian LaManna (104k), JC Pollard (48k), and others publish considerate, related content material.
Their audience (gross sales leaders) spends a whole lot of time on LinkedIn, so it is smart for Gong’s AEs and advertising leaders to construct a presence there.
Additionally they present up via activation occasions just like the Have a good time Convention, which platforms Gong’s management group alongside exterior consultants.
As well as, there are ongoing webinars. These digital gatherings are often co-hosted by one Gong SME and a identified business voice. The model additionally hosts smaller in-person occasions that create area to work together with its viewers.
It’s sensible, actually. Individuals belief folks, and Gong empowers their inside consultants to construct thought leadership and keep high of thoughts.
The Branding Differentiation Lesson
Establish consultants inside your organization who need to develop their personal profiles and leverage them to strengthen the general model picture.
Enable them to talk in their very own voice, and don’t attempt to censor their content material. Create a program that helps them unfold their affect externally via podcasts, webinars, and even public talking.
In the event that they present up within the locations your viewers is already hanging out, that’s a win in your model.
4. Fenty: Stand for one thing larger than your self.
Differentiator: Inclusive merchandise and campaigns that guarantee holistic illustration
Earlier than Fenty, magnificence manufacturers bought away with exclusion for many years. Deeper basis shades have been an afterthought and infrequently existed. Even worse, the folks creating merchandise for BIPOC ladies weren’t a part of our communities, and it confirmed within the present vary.
Rihanna noticed the hole and constructed Fenty to shut it.
She launched Fenty Magnificence in 2017 with 40 basis shades on day one as a result of she knew what it felt like to not discover your shade of make-up within the retailer.
Personally, I used to be excited! She was a disruptor, making inclusive merchandise that clients had been begging for, however nobody had created. And all of a sudden, manufacturers that had by no means prioritized inclusivity scrambled to broaden their shade ranges.
It’s a sensible transfer as a result of Fenty wasn’t making an attempt to compete with the large names. They targeted on creating merchandise for BIPOC ladies with shades you couldn’t discover elsewhere, which allowed them to carve a distinct segment for themselves.
Inside 40 days of launching, Fenty had $100,000,000 in revenue, proof that there’s a marketplace for numerous magnificence merchandise.
However, it’s not simply inclusive shades. Fenty has persistently featured plus-size fashions, disabled fashions, and expertise from throughout the gender spectrum.
Everybody will get to see themselves in Fenty as a result of the model is intentional about illustration.
It additionally helps that Rihanna makes use of her private model to maximise visibility for Fenty. She makes tutorials displaying folks use the merchandise, which builds a way of possession and group round each launch.
Nevertheless, this solely labored as a result of the product is unbelievable.
Fenty additionally provides again via the Clara Lionel Basis to fund local weather resilience, well being initiatives, and schooling for marginalized communities.
The Branding Differentiation Lesson
You’ll be able to’t simply add a worth or mission statement to your web site and name it an inclusive model. It is advisable to begin on the product stage and be certain that your audience is represented within the inside groups.
Illustration and belief go hand in hand. When carried out proper, they construct a motion that turns clients into model evangelists.
5. OpenAI: Develop into a behavior, not only a product.
Differentiator: A software that’s seamlessly embedded in on a regular basis workflows
There’s a YouTube video from 2018 the place Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, talks about what makes a fantastic product. He says, “If a product is so good that individuals spontaneously inform their pals about it, you’ve already carried out 80% of the work.”
Pals, I’ve been on the prepare, within the air, and on the seaside, and at every of those places, somebody was speaking about ChatGPT.
There’s a sample I’m seeing as I write this text, the place the perfect model differentiators are disruptors that innovate with a product so good, it turns the business on its head.
OpenAI has carried out that with each product they’ve launched, together with:
- ChatGPT
- Sora
- DALL·E
- Whisper
- Codex
- The API
- AI Brokers
Particularly, ChatGPT has turn out to be an on a regular basis app. For instance, I take advantage of it to seek out wholesome recipes, troubleshoot points with my washer, automate content material workflows, and even assist with fundraising for my nonprofit, The FCDC.
OpenAI not too long ago launched ChatGPT Pulse. Pulse will ship personalised updates based mostly on the consumer’s habits. For my part, this new characteristic will increase app utilization and additional embeds ChatGPT as a part of folks’s each day routine.
Manufacturers that differentiate are these whose merchandise turn out to be habits. Behavior is the way you rank within the consumer’s thoughts earlier than they begin a search. You need to be the primary identify out of their mouth when a buddy asks for a advice.
The Branding Differentiation Lesson
Probably the most highly effective type of differentiation is when your customers do the advertising for you. Deal with constructing a product so good, folks evangelize with out incentive.
6. Liquid Loss of life: Make FUN your technique
Differentiator: Punk rock branding for canned water
Water is important to life. It’s one thing we’re all advised to drink extra of, but not everybody enjoys it. A poll by CivicScience revealed that almost half of U.S. adults eat far under the really helpful quantity of eight glasses per day.
The core downside is that many individuals don’t see water as one thing they need however as a routine they’re speculated to do.
Liquid Loss of life got down to break the mould after they launched in 2019. In a U.S. market flooded with nearly 3,000 bottled water brands, the model discovered white area by making water enjoyable.
Each time I hear the phrase “liquid dying,” I think about myself swinging a solid-body electrical guitar and taking part in with Brian Might. That’s the model picture that Liquid Loss of life has constructed.
As a substitute of unpolluted, serene packaging, they gave us tallboys with flaming skulls and taglines like “Homicide your thirst.”
Their content material is ridiculous, in one of the simplest ways. They’ve dropped a metallic album about hydration, launched a children’ cartoon known as “Murderverse,” and even paid folks to get Liquid Loss of life tattoos.
And, it really works. Liquid Loss of life now has over 14 million followers on Instagram and TikTok. In 2024, they pulled in over $333 million in retail sales, up 26% from $263 million the yr earlier than.
Whereas most CPG manufacturers are nonetheless making an attempt to determine join with Gen Z and Millennials, Liquid Loss of life has already constructed a cult following. The model exhibits that an anti-corporate tone can work.
The Branding Differentiation Lesson
One cause folks do not join with branded content is as a result of it is not participating. Typically, interactions really feel faceless and boring.
Make your model enjoyable. Liquid Loss of life’s content material works as a result of it’s true to their model and carries over into their product, advertising, and brand identity. Even water can turn out to be a behavior when it’s marketed in a fascinating manner.
The 8 Steps to Model Differentiation
These steps are based mostly on ideas from “The Distinction Engine”. This can be a mannequin of differentiation greatest practices based by HubSpot Diamond Solutions partner, Articulate Marketing.
To begin, let’s view the eight steps from a excessive stage. Then, we’ll dive into the main points, together with examples you need to use to encourage your personal efforts.
1. Your Mission
Google’s mission is to prepare the world’s data and make it universally accessible and helpful. This Google instance showcases a couple of key parts that can assist you outline your mission:
- Recognizability: You learn this, you understand it’s Google’s mission.
- Ambition: “The world’s data”.
- Actions and outcomes: “Set up” “accessible”, “helpful”.
- Context: Trade place (on this case, the tech sector).
- Quick is greatest: A dozen phrases.
- Readability: It’s straightforward to learn and perceive.
Your mission ought to be a central purpose. From right here, you may place your services, construct out yearly objectives, quarterly objectives and metrics for fulfillment, and develop your methods. This is step one. You’ll need to use this construction to outline your ambitions.
When you’ve recognized your mission, everybody in your online business might be singing from the identical tune sheet. Your collective voice will carry. Stations play your tune on the radio, the album goes platinum, you turn out to be the subsequent Adele of … HealthTech.
It’s all inside attain in the event you make it your mission to get there.
2. Expertise and Tradition
There are two sides to any model. The primary is the model id because it pertains to clients.
The second is how your model is positioned inside your group, as an employer, and as a world citizen. In different phrases, the tradition of your organization.
Too many organizations pay lip service to tradition. They provide fundamental advantages and publish a “values” chart on the wall. It’s not sufficient. Gifted workers will go elsewhere. However workers that take pleasure in a fantastic firm tradition are 3.8 times more likely to be engaged. And engaged and proficient folks make for an distinctive enterprise.
In actual fact, purchasers are beginning to concentrate to office tradition, too, as a result of they need to work with glad, supported, and empowered groups — whereas additionally having enterprise companions who’re dedicated to shared values. It’s now not nearly price and outcomes, however in regards to the kinds of corporations folks need to accomplice with for the long-term.
Advice: Take into account third-party certifications, as supplied by the likes of Investors in People and B Corp. Their evaluations go away nowhere to cover, so that they maintain you trustworthy. Such certifications are the proof that you simply actually do enterprise in another way.
3. The Toolkit
The most effective companies use the perfect instruments.
Take Ecologi’s story for instance. Ecologi has established a unbelievable model differentiation technique. They provide unparalleled transparency round carbon offsetting and tree planting with know-how that showcases the good work they do. Their climate-positive mission is well timed and well-targeted. What they provide is in-demand given the present environmental disaster. In order that they started experiencing speedy development. Companies need to do their half to attain internet zero. Ecologi gives the means to get there.
Though that they had skilled success with HubSpot Sales Hub, they relied on a number of methods for advertising. This meant helpful information was falling via the cracks. That they had restricted advertising intelligence and patchy lead seize compliance. Any adjustments relied on dev assist.
As soon as they have been efficiently introduced onto HubSpot’s Marketing Hub, nonetheless, their group discovered they might monitor lead sources in addition to align their advertising and gross sales processes. By benefiting from the instruments, they noticed accelerated outcomes.
Now, they will personalize campaigns to focus on sectors, prolong their attain, and develop their popularity as a model.
That instance is only one manner that instruments empower a model to face head-and-shoulders above the remaining. So, step three: audit your toolkit.
4. Strategic Blueprints
You need to have a strategic blueprint for all parts of your content material and communications. These are the core guides in your positioning.
A strategic blueprint is an up-to-date doc that everybody in your group can entry.
It’s as much as you what you want a blueprint for. Most companies may have these:
- Personas: A illustration of your excellent clients
- Messaging: The important thing messages you need to get throughout to your viewers
- Tone of voice: The perspective of your online business; the way you speak on all platforms
- Writing style: The phrases and grammar you employ
- Buyer journey: The steps from first touchpoint to paying buyer
Consistency is integral to differentiation. You probably have a constant model, then it’s going to be simpler to acknowledge, whether or not your viewers is studying a Tweet or watching a video.
These strategic blueprints ought to be utilized with such regularity and enthusiasm that an outsider may guess their contents.
Let’s put that concept into apply. Do this train. Take one among these robust manufacturers that you simply’re aware of and sketch out a persona and the journey they go on to purchase, three key messages, 5 perspective phrases and a few notable types, equivalent to using formal/casual phrases:
- Harmless Drinks
- Outdated Spice
- Apple
When you’ve carried out that, attempt to do the identical for your online business.
5. Model Structure
Step 5 is all about establishing your visual brand. This can be a enormous matter, however let’s ask ourselves some key questions.
When did you final replace your emblem? Is it easy, trendy, and legible? Do you could have a well-defined visible type all through your web site and different channels? Are issues like your fonts and coloration palette outlined in a model e book?
Has your web site been up to date within the final couple of years? Does it precisely replicate your providers and your story? Is it quick loading and straightforward to navigate?
Like with strategic blueprints, consistency is important. You probably have a constant visible model, then it’s extra prone to turn out to be aware of your viewers. Subsequently, they’ll bear in mind who you might be.
Beyond Encryption, a safe communications supplier, took their visible branding a step additional than most corporations. Somewhat than having one emblem and one colorway, they selected to develop an entire model household.
Every of their product strains has its personal emblem and design profile; they’re harmonious, but distinct. All of them move from the identical model methodology, with the primary website model and emblem because the “mum or dad.”
Past Encryption makes use of this model household to focus on segmented audiences whereas sustaining a transparent, differentiated model.
6. Thought Management
Thought leadership is a tactic content material entrepreneurs use to construct credibility for themselves or leaders of their firm.
Basically, thought management is model positioning based mostly on experience.
The benefit of experience is, in contrast to positioning based mostly on value, it’s one thing you may leverage in a novel and thought-provoking manner. It’s the path to long-term positioning that you simply construct over time, quite than a fast and soiled race to the underside.
Actual consultants have information and opinions that different persons are inquisitive about studying about. Companies with in-house consultants can differentiate themselves by creating thought leadership content, like blogs and white papers, leveraging their experience. This helps you determine credibility together with your viewers.
What we don’t recommend, nonetheless, is positioning based mostly on the idea of experience (“I’m an skilled, so belief me”). Thought leaders display their experience in tangible methods. They’ve certifications, and are evidence-based. They don’t simply say they’re consultants. They present it.
The opposite mistake folks typically make is to confuse experience with complexity. This implies filling your content material with obscure jargon about your providers. That’s not going to work, either. As Einstein put it, “In the event you can‘t clarify it merely, you don’t perceive it nicely sufficient.”
7. Lead Technology
When you’ve bought your thought management content material out into the world, you may count on to see a rising viewers coming to your web site. From there, you need to seize contact particulars, equivalent to folks’s names and e-mail addresses.
Right here is one other alternative to distinguish your self. The lead era and nurturing course of is the place you begin to see actual engagement together with your model. It’s your probability to construct a relationship with prospects.
So many companies drop the ball right here. They miss alternatives to get leads. Or they dive proper into pushy gross sales ways as soon as they do get them. Right here’s another method:
- Inform: Present solutions to questions with out asking something in return. Supply sources like eBooks or calculators. Be useful.
- Join: Goal content material that addresses your lead’s wants, implement personalization and make it straightforward to get to know your persona and your folks a little bit higher.
- Encourage: Give prospects a way to benchmark their enterprise towards opponents. Supply examples of success tales. Counsel a path to the best final result.
8. Iterative Optimization
Lastly, let’s speak optimization.
Sir David Brailsford leads Britain’s first ever skilled biking group. On the 2008 Olympics, his group gained the vast majority of gold medals in monitor biking and did the identical on the subsequent Olympics.
Sir David Brailsford told Harvard Business Review, “It struck me that we must always assume small, not large, and undertake a philosophy of steady enchancment via the aggregation of marginal features. Overlook about perfection; give attention to development, and compound the enhancements.”
You don’t essentially have to shake up your entire model to distinguish your online business. You’ll be able to merely make small enhancements that, over time, make an enormous distinction.
In advertising, this implies observing what works, monitoring and measuring the info, testing variants, and implementing the higher choice, each time. That’s the way you go for gold.
These eight steps to model differentiation are positively not for the chance averse. However they’re for formidable corporations and leaders who’ve a development mindset.
The distinction between you and each different enterprise out there may be that you simply’re keen to take step one.
Differentiation solely works when it’s disruptive on the core.
You must bake your differentiating ingredient into your model from day one. It might probably’t be an afterthought. The manufacturers profitable at present constructed merchandise that kind habits, inform tales price sharing, and stay their mission like a second pores and skin.
Editor’s observe: This publish was initially printed in September 2025 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.
