Having looked deeply into differentiation and distinction in Part I and Part II of this series let’s turn to the research and discussions which started the great battle between the two.

That leads us to the work of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science (EBI) and Professor Byron Sharp’s book How Brands Grow. The entire team at EBI are an outstanding resource for marketers and often the best source for good research work on marketing issues and Sharp’s book is an outstanding addition to our understanding. That said, while their work on differentiation has been valuable, I do not agree with the broad conclusions reached by EBI and Sharp.

How Brands Grow

How Brands Grow quite rightly notes that a certain type of differentiation has an exaggerated place in the marketing mindset:

• “Texbooks emphatically tell marketers that differentiation must be the centerpiece of their marketing strategy.” (P112)
• “Differentiation is deemed to be an essential part of marketing strategy. It is taught more like religion than hard-nosed business: differentiated brands will inherit all the customers and profits; it’s all or nothing and we are told we must ‘differentiate or die’ (Trought & Rivkin 2000).” (p118)

Absolutely!!! My first two posts in this trifecta offer my own view of differentiation — a view far more robust, adaptable, and nuanced than the absolute claims of marketing orthodoxy.

Further, EBI and Sharp do a great service for marketers putting distinctiveness in a prominent place. Prior to How Brand Grow many marketers did not consider the huge economic value from careful management of distinctive brand assets.

Things veer off-course, though, with the book’s broad conclusions about differentiation:

• “Textbooks offer no evidence, beyond selective case studies, that differentiation leads to brand growth or profitability.” (p113).
• Thus, “Rather than striving for meaningful perceived differentiation, marketers should seek meaningless distinction. Branding lasts, differentiation doesn’t.” (p112)

Why These Conclusions About Differentiation?

Notice, first, that EBI discussions on differentiation consider it only as it relates to brand yet this distinction is not discussed in their work. As a successful marketing and advertising practitioner, product and brand are far different and require far different approaches to gain marketing value from each. And, issues of difference vary dramatically if we are looking at product as opposed to brand. While I can understand a choice to focus on brand, by failing to acknowledge that choice their work misleads by implying ALL differentiation is unimportant when they only know about its effect on brand efforts.

With that in mind, I am in full agreement that differentiation usually (but not always) has little value within brand efforts. On the other hand, the impact and value of differentiation depends heavily on specific time and place (as we saw in Part I) and on company need (as we saw in Part II). Thus, there is no universal law of differentiation just as there is no universal law of distinctiveness. (Brand distinctiveness also matters differently depending on time and place.) These are tools are to be applied as they fit within our marketing challenges.

I become further concerned as I dig into the specific research EBI conducted. From what I can see, EBI set out to test “differentiate or die” claims for brands. For this reason, the research determines value of differentiation by asking people whether they consider a brand to be different. The research finds that people rarely answer that they find the brand different.

The research is good AND clearly shows the exaggerated claims made by “differentiate or die” enthusiasts are wrong.

But I have never applied the orthodox approach and have always seen difference more robustly. If we consider this more robust sense of difference as a marketing tool, the research finds nothing of significance. Directly asking about conscious recall of difference even for products is a bar far too high as conscious awareness is primarily transient and not stable as we saw In Part I:

• Customers likely are conscious of whether a product is different for only a short time.
• Consumers seem to process differences then retain the result through preferences or emotions as in “I like that product.”

Further, by looking explicitly and only at brand the research asks about something generally meaningless to consumers. Consider the difference between “is the brand Pepsi different from the brand Coke” as opposed to, for just one example, “does Pepsi taste different from Coke?”

Remember, differentiation appears most critical as a transient effect leading to an emergent preference. When difference is important, conscious awareness in the customer mind will be short-lived but lead to persistent long-term events through emerged preferences or emotions.

Agreeing with EBI that the “differentiate or die” claims of orthodoxy applied to brand are generally false it is roughly valid to conclude “that differentiation plays a more limited role in brand competition than the orthodox literature assumes” as does a 2007 article from Jenni Romaniuk, Byron Sharp, and Andrew Ehrenberg. (emphasis added)

I fully disagree that this narrow finding justifies broad claims that differentiation is unimportant. Yet this is the net take away I hear when marketers discuss EBI results and How Brands Grow. As with EBI claims about persuasion (which is similarly far different for products and brands), within their generally exceptional work these are disservices to the marketing world.

Complexity & Measurement

Part of the challenge here has to do with measurement. Traditional expectations for science in business imply that anything important must be able to be measured. One of the surprising truths from complexity is that many things which are important cannot be directly measured and can only be indirectly measured with tremendous nuance.

Thus, while distinctiveness and differentiation are both very important in marketing only the effect of distinctiveness can be clearly measured. This does NOT, though, mean differentiation is unimportant. Instead, its nature makes it hard — perhaps impossible — to clearly measure its result.

This is not unusual within complex realities as they are exceptionally hard — even impossible — to measure. Let’s start off with a metaphor for complex challenges from Murray Gel Mann:

[J]ust as the quark is a symbol of the physical laws…the jaguar is … a possible metaphor for the elusive complex adaptive system, which continues to avoid a clear analytical gaze, though its pungent scent can be smelled in the bush.

If we want to measure something precisely, we must define and reduce it into a narrowly clear idea. Complex adaptive systems cannot be so narrowly defined. Their sets of parts interact and adapt with and within the environment leading whole results to emerge. It is rare we can measure — or even clearly define — “exactly” what happens in those interactions and adaptations. Instead, we must begin to detect the “pungent scent” of complexity at work.

Within a complex system like consumer behavior, then, we learn by observing what we can then use thought experiment assisted by efforts of measurement and modeling in an attempt to understand what matters in the process leading to what emerges. And, instead of seeking universal laws, those pungent scents often reveal that patterns have emerged at the macro-level. While these patterns are often consistent across many situations, they emerge each time as a result of different specifics. Simon Levin, Princeton ecologist and evolutionary biologist, notes this result in ecosystems:

…broad features of vegetation may be predictable, but the exact composition is not, even given every possible detail about temperature, moisture, topography, and soil conditions. (emphasis added)

And complexity economist W. Brian Arthur notes:

To the extent that small events determining the overall path always remain beneath the resolution of the economist’s lens, accurate forecasting of an economy’s future may be theoretically, not just practically, impossible. (emphasis added)

Many in business have long known about this measurement problem — one particularly difficult with consumer behavior which appears to be theoretically impossible to forecast and not merely impractical. Consider a key lesson of complexity anticipated by W. Edwards Deming.

…the most important figures that one needs for management are unknown or unknowable … but successful management must nevertheless take account of them.

Fortunately, we have far more opportunities to learn about how the world works than measurements alone. Qualitative research is exceptionally important. I often used focus groups to observe what emerged when participants were presented material. We could also explore how and why those materials led patterns of interest to emerge (or NOT to emerge). We also can do a tremendous amount of learning by metaphor and analogy — starting with a study of how ecosystems work. Ecosystem complexity has been studied for over 200 years.

Conclusions About the EBI Work

No other group has been as effective as EBI has been helping us understand many critical issues in marketing. They have discovered and communicated many critical ideas — like the Marketing Law of Double Jeopardy — and we have benefited. Further, every marketer should own a copy of How Brands Work. On this issue:

• EBI and How Brands Grow are right to attack the error of “differentiate or die.” I’ve had my own experiece with the narrow minded absurdities of “intentional differentiation” in companies — one particular meeting which chased after entirely meaningless things seeking to make our product “different.” (They didn’t.)
• EBI and How Brands Grow are right to build the importance of distinctiveness. The mere idea had been ignored for far too long and they did a tremendous service to marketers by bringing it back onto our radar screens.
• EBI and How Brands Grow are wrong to imply that differentiation (a) is a brand issue and (b) is unimportant.

Conclusions and Recommendations on Differentiation

What about differentiation?

• Every reader needs to learn whether, and then how, intentionally making their products different might (or might not) be important in their work. Key is whether this affects how decisions to buy a product emerge for customers.
• Every reader needs to reject the old structure of “differentiate or die.” We must be more creative in deciding what differences matter. All that matters is that customers consider the differences (whatever they are) enough for a decision to buy your product to emerge. This does NOT come from identifying tiny differences as if angels dancing on the head of a pin. The differences which matter are meaningful in customer lives.
• Readers must also never expect they can differentiate once and be done. A few times long lasting advantage can be built though intentional difference. More often companies must continually refresh products to re-establish difference.

Marketers often build critical advantage through differentiation and neither difference nor distinctiveness matter the same way in every effort. For some efforts, difference determines success or failure. For other efforts, it is unimportant and a waste of energy. There is little middle ground. By contrast, distinction seems to be useful in most efforts even though specifics vary across situations.

Readers, then, must develop a more robust and varied and, honestly, ambiguous definition of differentiation. Traditional marketing book discussion of differentiation is linear, rigid, and narrow based on a belief in marketing absolutes. There ARE NO marketing absolutes which are absolute paths to success. We must, instead, expand our expectations of differentiation. We must also realize that the clear separation of differentiation, brand, product, and distinctiveness is a construct we have created to help us think about each separately. Within the consumer or customer mind, such boundaries don’t exist as their world is interwoven from human realities.

In my next post we will leave this topic to pursue other new directions around complexity.

Until next time, be well.

©2025 Doug Garnett — All Rights Reserved

Through my company, Protonik LLC, I consult with companies as they design and bring to market new and innovative products. I am writing a book exploring the value of complexity science for driving business success. Protonik also produces marketing materials including documentaries, websites, and blogs. As an adjunct instructor at Portland State University I teach marketing, consumer behavior, and advertising.

You can read more about these services and my unusual background (math, aerospace, supercomputers, consumer goods & national TV ads) at www.Protonik.net. Roughly once a month, Shahin Khan and I discuss current issues in marketing on our podcast The Marketing Podcast available on Google, Spotify, the OrionX website, and Apple Podcast.