Settling for superficial distinctiveness is a poor substitute for deep differentiation.
Agencies often believe that they can stand out by making a few high-level claims. But that’s just surface-level distinctiveness. The reality is that deep differentiation is a very different beast.
Think of ‘distinctiveness’ as a marginal difference. It’s generally subtle and needs to be pointed out. Explaining your distinctiveness often demands heavy emphasis on one or two words and usually leaves clients none the wiser. This superficiality is a shortcut to invisibility and underselling your expertise.
In contrast, deep differentiation is a lasting competitive advantage. It’s clear, clients notice it and it can’t be recreated by any competitor with a thesaurus.
Depth of difference is what characterises the best performing agencies. And they don’t just stand out, they show-up differently – winning more and commanding a premium.
Symptoms of Meh
Sadly, settling for distinctiveness over differentiation is endemic. That’s why agency rhetoric is so similar. Witness wall-to-wall flavours of ‘we do great work for ambitious brands’.
I call these uninspiring attempts to stand out ‘Symptoms of Meh‘.
And if you’re unfamiliar with ‘meh’, just imagine a teenager expressing their withering indifference. Not the response you want from clients.
Here are six of the most common Symptoms of Meh, along with tips on how to spot them.
- Selling services not solutions – This is the classic non-specialised claim of specialisation, such as ‘we specialise in these 46 services’. For clients, it’s like arriving in a restaurant and being handed a menu of ingredients. So ask yourself – are you being client-centric or hard to buy from?
- Category generics – These are platitudes masquerading as points of difference, like ‘we start with strategy’ or – worse still – ‘creativity is our secret sauce’. Ask yourself – could literally any agency say this?
- Tame provocations – These are tepid perspectives that no sane person could ever disagree with, like ‘we believe that brands should serve customers’ or ‘we believe in ambitious ideas’. Ask yourself – could the opposite ever be true?
- Rephrasing your discipline – This is the enduring temptation to squeeze out a new definition of something well-established. These include well-trodden agency aspirations like ‘creating an unfair share of attention’ or ‘inserting brands into culture’. Ask yourself – are you just reinventing the wheel?
- Inventing new disciplines – The more inventive cousin of symptom no. 4, this involves fruitlessly devising an entirely new kind of agency, like being the ‘street culture agency’ or the ‘human potential agency’. Ask yourself – do you always have to explain what it means?
- Hedging your bets – Often an output of misaligned committees, this is where you take multiple passes at positioning and end up drowning in word soup. Something like this – deep breath – ‘We’re a creative marketing agency. Our performance and digital marketing skills span data, media and creative. We help brands with media buying, search, content and social media’. Ask yourself – do you get bored before you’ve even finished saying it?
There are probably more than six, but you get the idea. For now, be honest – how many of them apply to your agency?
And here’s a bonus ‘tell’ – if few of your team love delivering your elevator pitch, then you’re probably guilty of at least one.
How different are you?
Settling for distinctiveness reveals that you offer very little substance for clients – or your people – to buy into. In a crowded market, this is the epitome of playing small. So if you want your agency to reach its potential, then you need to choose a different path.
Step one is to get clear on whether you’re as differentiated as you need to be. If you know you’re not, then it helps to clarify the challenge. And if you think you are, then you’d better make sure you’re right.
In either case, check out Co:definery’s Diagnostic Questionnaire. Answer the quick-fire multiple choice questions to receive a bespoke report, including tailored advice and suggested additional content.