What happens when everyone tries to differentiate themselves using the same tactic?
Are they truly differentiated any longer? Or has that differentiator merely become table stakes to stay in the game?
Enter The Trend Of Celebrity Booze
George Clooney, Conor McGregor and Ryan Reynolds are the Cinderella stories we aspire to in the craft spirits game. These early adopters aligned themselves with a brand and seemingly overnight exploded valuations to obscene heights.
With every success story come the copycats who try to grab onto the coattails of a rising super brand. Have we reached the saturation point where a celebrity alignment has become meaningless?
I think the gang on “It’s Always Sunny In Philadephia” summed it up best:
Yes, any idiot can get into the Celebrity Booze game but is it a wise investment?
Tempting? Sure. However spending money to meaningfully differentiate your brand with a tactic that is already being parodied on prime-time television may be an indicator of a saturation point.
When Nelson Rockefeller got a “hot stock” tip from the guy shining his shoes he realized that if the market data had become so ubiquitous that even the shoe shiner was giving him tips there was no doubt that it was time to get out of the market.
The Great Depression soon followed wiping out fortunes globally while Nelson’s fortune continued to grow into one of the largest humankind has ever seen.
Differentiating your brand can be a monumental task but anything worth achieving (including marketing superpowers) comes from a place of pain, effort and perseverance. In the upcoming book Marketing For Supervillains I detail our process of differentiation and the top ten areas you should consider along the way where big brands have achieved massive success via differentiation.
