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Brick No94: The language of the upstart
By Matt Weston, Tuesday 14 September 2004 A postcard from Italy Un. As you know, I got back from my fortnight's breather at the weekend. And rather than bearing a slice of tasty Milanese Panettone I bring you a two-letter prefix. Yep, you heard me. Un. In between the drawn-out siestas, the over-ambitious barbeques and the magnificent ferry rides (by far the best way to get around Lake Garda is on giant Art Deco motorships) . . . I did come up with something I thought you'd be able to apply to your small business. Mr Soft Show me sunshine, Espresso, dehydration, and I develop a - completely out of character - yearning for cans of pop. I know, I know. You're probably thinking that mass-market soft drinks are about as far removed from your small business as could be, but do bear with me, in a minute you'll see why it's super-relevant. My guilty pleasure is not for the Dark Side, the caffeine high of Coca-Cola or Pepsi. No, my fix is from the clear guys, the lemon & lime category of fizzy pop. Give me Fanta Lemon, Limon Soda, Schweppes Lemon and . . . (cue drum roll) . . . 7-Up, the Uncola. The Uncola 7-Up was born in 1929, just before the Great Depression. Fast-forward to 1967. The marketers behind 7-Up knew they couldn't beat the Colas (the fizzy establishment) at their own game. So they invented a brand new soft drink niche. 7-Up wasn't just clear, fizzy pop. 7-Up was the Uncola, the opposite, the antithesis of Cola. Every billboard, promotional glass and bottle carried the very same slogan. And it worked: 7-Up held No1 position in the Uncola category it invented for over 20 years, until 1989 (370.5 million cases of 7-Up sold in 1985). As Jay Conrad Levinson puts it: " The more money Coca-Cola and Pepsi spent on advertising, the more it helped the Uncola. " Pepsi failed with a long-forgotten brand called Slice. And Coca-Cola had introduced Sprite in 1961, but that didn't make inroads into 7-Up's market share until the original Uncola started experimenting with meaningless slogans like"Make 7-Up Yours" and "The Only Way To Go Is Up" in the late 1980s. The language of the upstart Anyway, back to your SMALL business. Many of us start-up for what I term "Un" reasons: to deliberately do the OPPOSITE of what the market leader/ the establishment norm/ or even your current employer does. In my case, by not hiring somebody who doesn't run a business to write about running a business, I did all three. For many of us, simply defining what makes us "Un" gives us our strongest marketing message. Un = the language of the upstart. Un doesn't mean better, it means unlike. The point isn't to take on the behemoths at their own game. If you want to compete with the market leader on price or quality, you'll need seriously deep pockets. Instead focus on targeting a niche that your lumbering competitors can't tap. And work out how you can make other people's dissatisfied customers, your profitable customers. Bric-A-Brac In amongst the many "happy holiday" emails you sent me on my way with two weeks ago, were several book recommendations . . . your addendums to brick No93 (A Holiday Reading List). I can't say I've read all these, but they come very highly recommended: 1. Alun Richards recommends "FREE GIFT INSIDE" by Stephen Brown not to be confused with Seth Godin's "Free Prize Inside". 2. "BE CREATIVE" by Guy Claxton & Bill Lewis is well worth a read according to Alex Smith 3. "SIMPLY BRILLIANT" by Fergus O'Connell was recommended by Neil Watson. A book that lives up to its title, I'm told. 4. Steve Dobson, The Marketing Medic, swears by "FIRST, BREAK ALL THE RULES" by Marcus Buckinham & Curt Coffman. 5. Lastly, John Rooney thought I ought to have re-recommended Guy Kawasaki's PDF "THE ART OF THE START". Remember to sign up: back to top |
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