Brand differentiation is more important now than ever before.  You can’t just be better than your competitors — you must be different.  Here are five of my resources, all in one handy spot, to help you understand the new challenges and requirements to differentiate and how to achieve greater brand differentiation.

Three Ways to Differentiate

If you want to stand out from the sea of sameness in your category, your brand must be different.  Simply being better than your competitors no longer creates a sustainable advantage in today’s competitive business environment.  Learn three strategies to make your brand stand out and gain an competitive advantage in this new video.

Don’t Settle for Being an “-er Brand”

Red flags go up whenever I hear a pitch that explains how a new offering is just like another but is small-er, bigg-er, thinn-er, light-er, fast-er, sexi-er, whatev-er.  Hearing “we’re just like X brand but we’re…” sets off warning signals about breakthrough ability and long-term viability.  Learn why an -er position is a dangerous one to adopt in this HBR.org article.

Be Different to Make a Difference

If you want to build a great brand, you would do well to focus on being different.  But your difference must make a difference.  You can’t be different just for the sake of being different.  Great brands are built on meaningful differentiation. To be meaningful, your differentiation needs to be polarizing, transcendent, and substantive.  Read more in this guest post on the Bulldog Drummond blog.

How To Determine Your Key Brand Differentiators

A brand differentiator is a unique feature, aspect, and/or benefit of your product or service that sets it apart from competing brands.  A single differentiator or a robust set of them form the basis for how you establish competitive advantage.  Take three steps to identify your key differentiators in this blog post.

A Great Customer Experience Isn’t Enough

To establish your customer experience as a true competitive advantage, it must be distinctive — it must be noticeable, valuable, and memorable to customers.  Good, generic customer experiences will soon simply define the playing field.  Differentiation will be how brands win.  Learn from Westin Hotel & Resorts and PIRCH in this guest post on the CX Journey blog.

Don’t miss out on my future postings about Brand Differentiation.  Sign-up for my e-newsletter, subscribe to my feed, , or follow me on Twitter.

The post brand differentiation appeared first on Denise Lee Yohn.

In order to maintain a strong presence, marketers need to use a consistent and well-defined brand voice.

Today, we’re excited to bring the world of TED Talks further into your home with the new TED Talks skill for Amazon Alexa! Available on devices with Amazon Alexa including the Echo and Echo Dot, TED fans can now listen to the latest ideas from the world’s greatest thinkers by voice command.

For existing Alexa users, enable the skill by saying “Alexa, enable TED Talks skill,” or go directly to the TED Talks skill page and click “enable skill.”

Once you’ve opened the TED Talks skill, ask Alexa to play talks about your favorite topics — from robots and space to design and mindfulness. Want to listen to the latest talk? Simply command, “Alexa, ask TED Talks for the latest talk.”

Whether you’re a multi-tasker who wants to learn about virtual reality while folding laundry, a parent needing a talk to distract a child during dinner or just a curious individual who wants to stay inspired without too much effort, Alexa can now provide you with a great idea with ease. Ask her things like, “Alexa, ask TED Talks for something funny,” and start listening.

Enable the TED Talks skill on Amazon or simply say, “Alexa, enable TED Talks skill,” to start listening to TED!

By Terry F. Yosie A growing number of the world’s largest companies are turning to “sustainability” as a strategic lens to help anticipate and navigate the complexity of the international economy, meet the expanding expectations of a growing global middle class, and manage the heightened risks to their businesses from environmental and social disruptions. As […]

Current First Amendment commercial speech issues, with particular emphasis on the increasing use of compelled disclosures and disclaimers, take the spotlight in this session.

As usual, the TED community has lots of news to share this week. Below, some highlights.

A new civic gathering. To cope with political anxiety after the 2016 elections, Eric Liu has started a gathering called Civic Saturday. He explained the event in The Atlantic as “a civic analogue to church: a gathering of friends and strangers in a common place to nurture a spirit of shared purpose. But it’s not about church religion or synagogue or mosque religion. It’s about American civic religion—the creed of liberty, equality, and self-government that truly unites us.” The gatherings include quiet meditation, song, readings of civic texts, and yes, a sermon. The next Civic Saturday happens April 8 in Seattle — and Eric’s nonprofit Citizens University encourages you to start your own. (Watch Eric’s TED Talk)

Medical research facilitated by apps. The Scripps Translational Science Institute is teaming up with WebMD for a comprehensive study of pregnancy using the WebMD pregnancy app.  By asking users to complete surveys and provide data on their pregnancy, the study will shed light on “one of the least studied populations in medical research,” says STSI director Dr. Eric Topol. The researchers hope the results will provide insights that medical professionals can use to avoid pregnancy complications. (Watch Eric’s TED Talk)

There’s a new type of cloud! While cloud enthusiasts have documented the existence of a peculiar, wave-like cloud formation for years, there’s been no official recognition of it until now. Back in 2009, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, of the Cloud Appreciation Society, proposed to the World Meteorological Society that they add the formation to the International Cloud Atlas, the definitive encyclopedia of clouds, which hadn’t been updated since 1987. On March 24, the Meteorological Society released an updated version of the Atlas, complete with an entry for the type of cloud that Pretor-Pinney had proposed adding. The cloud was named asperitas, meaning “roughness.” (Watch Gavin’s TED Talk)

What neuroscience can teach law. Criminal statutes require juries to assess whether or not the defendant was aware that they were committing a crime, but a jury’s ability to accurately determine the defendant’s mental state at the time of the crime is fraught with problems. Enter neuroscience. Read Montague and colleagues are using neuroimaging and machine learning techniques to study if and how brain activity differs for the two mental states. The research is in early stages, but continued research may help shed scientific light on a legally determined boundary. (Watch Read’s TED Talk)

Why we should award disobedience. After announcing the $250,000 prize last summer, the MIT Media Lab has begun to accept nominations for its first-ever Disobedience Award. Open to groups and individuals engaged in an extraordinary example of constructive disobedience, the prize honors work that undermines traditional structures and institutions in a positive way, from politics and science to advocacy and art. “You don’t change the world by doing what you’re told,” Joi Ito notes, a lesson that has been a long-held practice for the MIT group, who also recently launched their own initiative for space exploration. Nominations for the award are open now through May 1. (Watch Joi’s TED Talk)

The next generation of biotech entrepreneurs. The Innovative Genomics Institute, led by Jennifer Doudna, announced the winners of its inaugural Entrepreneurial Fellowships. Targeted at early-career scientists, the fellowship provides research funding plus business training and mentorship, an entrepreneurial focus that helps scientists create practical impact through commercialization of their work. “I’ve seen brilliant ideas that fizzle out because startup companies just can’t break into the competitive biotechnology scene,” Doudna says. “With more time to develop their ideas and technology, our fellows will have the head start needed to earn the confidence of investors.” (Watch Jennifer’s TED Talk)

The case for resettlement. Since the 1980s, the dominant international approach for the resettlement of refugees has been the humanitarian silo, a camp often located in countries that border war zones. But such host countries are often ill-equipped to bear the brunt. Indeed, many countries place severe restrictions on refugee participation within their communities and labor markets, creating what Alexander Betts describes in The Guardian as an indefinite, even unavoidable, dependency on aid. In this thought-provoking excerpt of his co-authored book, Betts outlines an economic argument for refugee resettlement, arguing that “refugees need to be understood as much in terms of development and trade as humanitarianism.” (Watch Alexander’s TED Talk)

Have a news item to share? Write us at [email protected] and you may see it included in this weekly round-up.

Teichner interviewed oncology dietician, Mary-Eve Brown, who stressed why good nutrition is essential:

“It’s been reported that two out of three people, when they show up for that very first oncology appointment for treatment are already suffering nutritionally–they’re undernourished or malnourished.”

When asked by Teichner about the relationship between food and cancer, Brown noted:

“There’s a relationship between high fat meats and certain types of gut cancers. There’s even a bigger body of evidence about obesity and cancer, female cancer, pancreas cancer.”

Teichner went to a supermarket with Dr. Margaret Cuomo, who produced a documentary and authored a book titled A World Without Cancer. Cuomo pointed out:

“The antioxidants and anti-inflammatory qualities of the vegetables and fruits that we’re seeing here today are those elements that are going to help us reduce the risk for cancer, diabetes and other diseases.”

Watch Beyond Cancer, the March 12th special broadcast of CBS Sunday Morning for more information that’s Good for You to Know About.

CBS Sunday Morning, 3/12/17

The post Food for thought: Your diet and cancer appeared first on The Good For You Network.

As companies have access to more consumer data than ever before, learn why they should be leveraging that data both to protect and to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

Scotch & Soda, the Dutch fashion house, reveals with it’s ad agency Publicis 133 a new print campaign and a manifesto film that raise the question of borders and encourages us to explore our curiosity.

An echo of the brand values: a blend of curiosity, irreverence and optimism. A nod to the way the brand creates and crafts its pieces: Scotch & Soda collections start when the designers head to the road to unearth remarkable finds.

CREATIVE CREDITS:
Brand: Scotch & Soda
Chief Marketing Officer: Adam Kakembo
Responsable Communication : Ozlem Birkalan
Ad Agency: Publicis 133, Paris, France
Creative Director: Antoine Bonodot / Christophe Derigon
AD: Sofia Arias
Copywriter: Erick Ricardo-Acosta
Account Director: Donatien Souriau
Account Manager : Yasmina Bourbih, Lola-Jade Rosine
Réalisateur / photographe: Emma Summerton

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By Gretchen Fox If a world class social media organization is operating at a level 5, I would confidently wager that the great majority are falling between a 2 and a 3, max. I call organizations that are operating at a Level 5 “STARRs.” At level 5, organizations have achieved: Stand Out Authority Status Top […]