We live in an age of clutter and confusion: every day we are
literally bombarded by new products, advertisements, and discounts, in a
constant flow of news and information. Ours is an era of
superabundance, and the only hope we have of freeing ourselves from the
confusion is to separate what is valuable from the rest of the copycat
products offered to us. That is why, these days, it is the truly
innovative companies which impress the public, who survive and succeed
in the long run: in order to thrive, you need to find your own
direction, and when everyone is zigging, you need to have the courage to
zag.
If we think about it, both consumers and companies are
victims of encumbrance. Even if we just look at a newspaper, it is easy
for us to find disorder and confusion caused by too much choice and a
vast abundance of products: a good example is to compare the goods on
the supermarket shelves in 1965, of which there were approximately
20,000, compared to the amount available to us today, which is more than
double that number. When we look at today’s market, we can easily
identify 5 types of clutter:
- The clutter of products, as demonstrated in the example above.
- The clutter of functions, such as all those available on our smartphones.
- The
clutter of adverts: it is estimated that every American receives around
3000 promotional messages a day, even though the human brain can
process less than 100 of them.
- The clutter of messages, or the
fact that the messages we receive, particularly the promotional ones,
have too many parts that end up confusing us.
- The clutter of
means of communication, meaning the fact that all the messages that we
receive come from several media sources which are constantly growing in
number: to help us realise the difference, all we have to do is think
that in 1960, there were only 6 television channels in America, 440
radio stations and 8,400 magazines. Today we can choose from 85
television channels, 13,500 radio stations and 12,000 magazines, without
even touching on the endless list of digital channels for all the
media.
Rather than entertaining us, this constant confusion
ends up frustrating us. In fact, despite an increase of over 75% in
promotional messages, today the public is paying less and less attention
to what companies have to offer: the only method the human brain has to
try to manage the chaos is to block the flow of stimuli as much as
possible. Instead of taking this into account, companies and brands
react by increasing the messages, features, products and other confusion
they send out. However, this is not the right solution in our rapidly
changing world. Especially since for the first time in the history of
the market, and because of the excess we are currently experiencing, the
power to decide who survives and who ends up becoming extinct, now lies
in the hands of consumers and not companies.
So we need a new
definition of the word brand that includes a good reputation, genuine
customer interest, and above all, that sets itself apart from all the
confusion and clutter created by other companies, to capture customer
attention and win their favour.
Not only is today’s cluttered
market crying out for diversity, but it needs to be radical. Only
companies that manage to set themselves apart from the rest, finding
their own space in the market will have the chance to survive today, and
they can do so by finding their own zag, meaning their differentiating
factor, and building on it.
One of the fears that holds companies
back from following their own zag is the fact that new ideas are often
subject to harsh criticism when they first land on the market. However,
this is not necessarily a bad thing, and indeed happens for the very
reason that the product or service offered is new, and does not fit into
any existing category that consumers are already familiar with and take
for granted. A shining example of a zag that initially received
criticism from the public, but which we all know today, is the famous
BMW Mini Cooper: market research prior to its launch clearly showed that
Americans wanted more SUVs and not a small car like the Mini. However,
the creators trusted their intuition, and the rest of the story is out
there for us to see every day on roads all over the world.
