However many of the successful brands of the past 20 years have succeeded by appealing to individualism. Just think of Nike and the call to you as an individual to Just Do It, Starbucks and your choice of Low Fat Mocha Decaf Latte, and Apple with its “Think Different” theme. True, others like Sony, Microsoft and Honda have done it by a more traditional product lead brand approach, but it remains a fact that individuality builds brands.
Doesn’t this undermine my thesis?
No. In reality at their heart each of these brands appeal to a particular group of people who use those brands as a mark of belonging to that group. The individualism is not really about you as a singular entity but you as a member of a group that rejects certain values of the mainstream. The choice of the brand then becomes a badge for the particular alternative values your group holds.
Thus Nike appealed to sports enthusiasts, initially for runners, to differentiate themselves from non-serious sports people, then to other groups; basketball, soccer, and virtually every sport. (See below for other examples)
If you are truly successful then people from other groups will seek out your brand as the sub-groups’ values started to become attractive to the mainstream.
The truth is individualism is just belonging to a different pack.
But it does change the way we need to build brands nowadays.
1. We need to have values which appeal to a sub-group and which differentiate us from the incumbents.
2. We need to find new ways of targeting our desired group. Traditional mass broadcast advertising may not be the best way. Nor is 1:1 marketing since it ignores the pack appeal. Sponsorship, narrowcast advertising, cause marketing and PR may be better.
3. Rather than define our target by who they are it may be better to define them as who they are not i.e. “People like us don’t .....”
Other Examples of “Individuality” Brands
Apple initially appealed to geeks as a rejection of the mind numbing power of IBM and later Microsoft.
Starbucks to hip West Coast students as a rebellion against the blandness of Maxwell House and Dunkin Donuts.
Tommy Hilfiger to the rich elite to differentiate themselves from the plebs, then the black urban community and then back again to the white community.
Levis 501s originally to gays.
Harley Davison to Hells Angels as the modern cowboys.
Virgin sold mail order discount music to young non-conformists in 1970s Britain who wanted to put it to the Man.
Cadillac reinvented itself partially by appealing to the rap community with the bling heavy Escalade.
Even Tim Horton’s can be seen as the reasserting of ordinary Canadian values against the tide of Americanism and “cool” choices.
