Differentiation Marketing Quotes

Online word-of-mouth is very powerful. These days customer service is one of the most important differentiation factors used by customers to pick one brand over others.

You can’t ignore the importance of being unique, remarkable, and differentiated in a highly crowded market.

Launching a similar product still needs some kind of differentiation.

Can you guess what makes me choose other restaurants over vegan restaurants when there is a perfect match in my dietary needs and those restaurants’ offerings? It is the inability of most of the vegan restaurants to differentiate between the needs of a vegan who never had meat and a vegan who is not born as one but became one with time.

Put bluntly, the struggle that so many companies have to differentiate or communicate their true value to the outside world is not a business problem, it's a biology problem. And just like a person struggling to put her emotions into words, we rely on metaphors, imagery and analogies in an attempt to communicate how we feel. Absent the proper language to share our deep emotions, our purpose, cause or belief, we tell stories. We use symbols. We create tangible things for those who believe what we believe to point to and say, "That's why I'm inspired." If done properly, that's what marketing, branding and products and services become; a way for organizations to communicate to the outside world. Communicate clearly and you shall be understood.

It's a fact...that in societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. The effects of these two systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization . Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women; others with none. It's what's known as 'the law of the market'...Economic liberalism is an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society. Sexual liberalism is likewise an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. —Warren Buffett

The CEO of a major publishing house was concerned about the lack of creativity among his editorial and marketing staffs. He hired a group of high-priced psychologists to find out what differentiated the creative employees from the others. After studying the staff for one year, the psychologists discovered only one difference between the two groups: The creative people believed they were creative and the less creative people believed they were not.

In today’s market, anything that isn’t differentiated through creativity or a 10x technology will be immediately commodified by the industrial system. The only way to sustainably incite your audience to take action is to inspire them with meaningful purpose.

most schools also focus too much on providing students with a set of predetermined skills, such as solving differential equations, writing computer code in C++, identifying chemicals in a test tube, or conversing in Chinese. Yet since we have no idea what the world and the job market will look like in 2050, we don’t really know what particular skills people will need. We might invest a lot of effort teaching kids how to write in C++ or speak Chinese, only to discover that by 2050 AI can code software far better than humans, and a new Google Translate app will enable you to conduct a conversation in almost flawless Mandarin, Cantonese, or Hakka, even though you only know how to say “Ni hao.

mass times its acceleration—is a differential equation because acceleration is a second derivative with respect to time. Equations involving derivatives with respect to time and space are examples of partial differential equations and can be used to describe elasticity, heat, and sound, among other things.

Big Brother has no interest in well-informed citizens capable of critical thinking. Big Brother wants you to shop at Wal-Mart, where He will control the media that influences your life. The media works with the government and with the large corporations to form mass culture, which is utilized to create public consent, and most folks aren’t even aware of this process as it goes on all around them. Big Brother is actively seeking the complacency of the wage-slaves. Big Brother doesn’t want you to know about the spoken word performances given by Henry Rollins, or Jello Biafra or Terrence McKenna- or a thousand other people- because they will crack your laminate of societal posturing. Big Brother doesn’t want you to know about Bill Hicks, because Brother Bill will provide you with the courage and impetus to spit in Big Brother’s face. The internet is but one facet of our mass-marketed popular culture, and everyone is plugged into it. If you’re reading this, you are a part of it, the internet, one large hive mind, a singular consciousness. And that can be a good thing, but too often, people let themselves slip into it, into this world, to the point where they are no longer able to differentiate between what they think, what they know, and what is thrust upon them. They have no access to their own point of view, or their own spiritual consciousness, for lack of a better way to phrase it. So, to answer your question, in a lengthy and circuitous fashion, I would say that disgust with intellectual sloth, puerile voyeurism and dissent are the primary proponents in my work.

When positioning a brand, aggressively avoid becoming a "me too" by assertively being a "who else?

Supply chain leaders manage complex systems with complex processes with increasing complexity. Leaders

Time is money. If we could take one day of transit time out of the supply chain, we could free up $1 billion in cash. Unfortunately, we cannot.

supply chain was and still is the silent enabler behind great companies, world economies, and successful communities. It

Today, it is focused on not just building chains but also on the design of agile networks.

But I was doing a bit of cleaning when you rang—the studio gets filthy—and the dust must have confused my powers of differentiation.

The most important characteristic of content marketing today is not quality or quantity. It’s insight. And that is the differentiator lacking almost everywhere.

But differentiation loses its meaning when the features and functionality have exceeded what the market demands.

Nobody cares about you, your brand, or your company. You're irrelevant...until proven otherwise.

In a nutshell, Blue Ocean Strategy is about creating completely new industries through fundamental differentiation as opposed to competing in existing industries by tweaking established models. Rather than outdoing competitors in terms of traditional performance metrics, Kim and Mauborgne advocate creating new, uncontested market space through what the authors call value innovation.

The term supply chain is not new. It is fundamental to military strategy. It was the difference between winning and losing in the Napoleonic wars and the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. The

Having a Grand Slam offer makes it almost impossible to lose. But why? What gives it such an impact? In short, having a Grand Slam Offer helps with all three of the requirements for growth: getting more customers, getting them to pay more, and getting them to do so more times. How? It allows you to differentiate yourself from the marketplace. In other words, it allows you to sell your product based on VALUE not on PRICE. Commoditized = Price Driven Purchases (race to the bottom) Differentiated = Value Driven Purchases (sell in a category of one with no comparison. Yes, market matters, which I will expound on in the next chapter) A commodity, as I define it, is a product available from many places. For that reason, it’s prone to purchases based on “price” instead of “value.” If all products are “equal,” then the cheapest one is the most valuable by default. In other words, if a prospect compares your product to another and thinks “these are pretty much the same, I’ll buy the cheaper one,” then they commoditized you. How embarrassing! But

Execution is the single greatest market differentiator. Great companies and successful individuals execute better than their competition. The barrier standing between you and the life you are capable of living is a lack of consistent execution.

It follows from Schopenhauer’s analysis that evert genuine work of art must have its origin in direct perception; that is to say it does not originate in concepts, and concepts are not what it communicates. This is what more than anything else differentiates good art from bad, or more accurately authentic from inauthentic art. The latter often originates in a desire on the part of the artist to meet some demand external to himself – to win approval, say, or be in the fashion, or supply a market – or else to put over a message of some sort. Such an artist starts by trying to thin what it would be a good idea to do – in other words, the starting point of the process for him is something that exists in terms of concepts. The inevitable result is dead art, of whatever kind, whether imitative, academic, commercial, didactic or fashion-conscious. It may be successful in its day because it meets the demands of its day, but once that day is over it has no inner life of its own with which to outlive it.

A third path that a business can follow—an offshoot of our two main strategies—is pursuing a highly targeted market and focusing its resources on serving that tight segment, whether through cost leadership or differentiation. This is the focus strategy.

The “quality revolution” in the latter half of the 20th century has taken us to a point where all products that reach a supermarket shelf work. The competitive differentiators of the future will be products which are the most innovative, even though they may not be the best

Is my product compelling to our target customer? Have we made this product as easy to use as humanly possible? Will this product succeed against the competition? Not today’s competition, but the competition that will be in the market when we ship? Do I know customers who will really buy this product? Not the product I wish we were going to build, but what we’re really going to build? Is my product truly differentiated? Can I explain the differentiation to a company executive in two minutes? To a smart customer in one minute? To an industry analyst in 30 seconds?

How does Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw choose one idea over another? She asks herself seven questions. Do I have a basic understanding of the area? Do I know something about what is happening in the larger space of that idea? How will I build differentiation, particularly if the idea is a common product? How do I make it affordable and at the same time, deliver high value? Wherever there is a collaborator involved in the ideation process, how do I create larger leverage through the relationship beyond just that one idea? Do I know upfront who will be a paying customer and how I will go about marketing my idea? Finally, do I have conviction about the idea?

It is conventionally believed that companies can either create greater value to customers at a higher cost or create reasonable value at a lower cost. Here strategy is seen as making a choice between differentiation and low cost.21 In contrast, those that seek to create blue oceans pursue differentiation and low cost simultaneously.

Nothing pushes down Mexican labor costs—increasing the differential—like a drug war raging throughout the country. In fact, the more violent the war, the lower Mexican labor costs, and so the greater the Mexican/American differential and the more attractive Mexico becomes to foreign direct investment seeking an advantage in the American market.

Product considerations in Luxury marketing   Ultra luxury products are differentiated from ordinary products through unique aesthetics. An explanation of the quality is best described through omission of words followed by physical evidence and presentation. The brand’s identity should be easily confirmed through a unique sensory experience. A visit

Publishers and advertisers can't differentiate between the types of impressions an ad does on a site. A perusing reader is no better than an accidental reader. An article that provides worthwhile advice is no more valuable than one instantly forgotten. So long as the page loads and the ads are seen, both sides are fulfilling their purpose. A click is a click.

It is rather pointless to go head to head with strong and entrenched competition. But numerous opportunities can be found in the marketplace for a company to maximize its unique qualities, differentiate its products and services, and go after a specific market segment where its competitors are weak and where you can develop superiority, where you can win battles.

As shown in figure 2-2, to break the trade-off between differentiation and low cost and to create a new value curve, there are four key questions to challenge an industry’s strategic logic and business model: Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated? Which factors should be reduced well below the industry’s standard? Which factors should be raised well above the industry’s standard? Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered?

Quite often, the discussion of purpose in an organizational setting is diluted by groupthink, as most people don’t feel comfortable giving their honest opinion, especially when doing so could impact their employment or financial status. Therefore, organizations must work to find ways to create safe environments for honest sharing and empower key stakeholders to make decisions that aren’t always popular—because to do something truly special, you must be as honest, defined, and differentiated as possible.

With our desire to have more, we find ourselves spending more and more time and energy to manage and maintain everything we have. We try so hard to do this that the things that were supposed to help us end up ruling us. We eventually get used to the new state where our wishes have been fulfilled. We start taking those things for granted and there comes a time when we start getting tired of what we have. We're desperate to convey our own worth, our own value to others. We use objects to tell people just how valuable we are. The objects that are supposed to represent our qualities become our qualities themselves. There are more things to gain from eliminating excess than you might imagine: time, space, freedom and energy. When people say something is impossible, they have already decided that they don't want to do it. Differentiate between things you want and things you need. Leave your unused space empty. These open areas are incredibly useful. They bring us a sense of freedom and keep our minds open to the more important things in life. Memories are wonderful but you won't have room to develop if your attachment to the past is too strong. It's better to cut some of those ties so you can focus on what's important today. Don't get creative when you are trying to discard things. There's no need to stock up. An item chosen with passion represents perfection to us. Things we just happen to pick up, however, are easy candidates for disposal or replacement. As long as we stick to owning things that we really love, we aren't likely to want more. Our homes aren't museum, they don't need collections. When you aren't sure that you really want to part with something, try stowing it away for a while. Larger furniture items with bold colors will in time trigger visual fatigue and then boredom. Discarding things can be wasteful. But the guilt that keeps you from minimizing is the true waste. The real waste is the psychological damage that you accrue from hanging on to things you don't use or need. We find our originality when we own less. When you think about it, it's experience that builds our unique characteristics, not material objects. I've lowered my bar for happiness simply by switching to a tenugui. When even a regular bath towel can make you happy, you'll be able to find happiness almost everywhere. For the minimalist, the objective isn't to reduce, it's to eliminate distractions so they can focus on the things that are truly important. Minimalism is just the beginning. It's a tool. Once you've gone ahead and minimized, it's time to find out what those important things are. Minimalism is built around the idea that there's nothing that you're lacking. You'll spend less time being pushed around by something that you think may be missing. The qualities I look for in the things that I buy are: - the item has a minimalistic kind of shape and is easy to clean - it's color isn't too loud - I'll be able to use it for a long time - it has a simple structure - it's lightweight and compact - it has multiple uses A relaxed moment is not without meaning, it's an important time for reflection. It wasn't the fallen leaves that the lady had been tidying up, it was her own laziness that she had been sweeping away. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. With daily cleaning, the reward may be the sense of accomplishment and calmness we feel afterward. Cleaning your house is like polishing yourself. Simply by living an organized life, you'll be more invigorated, more confident and like yourself better. Having parted with the bulk of my belongings, I feel true contentment with my day-to-day life. The very act of living brings me joy. When you become a minimalist, you free yourself from all the materialist messages that surround us. All the creative marketing and annoying ads no longer have an effect on you.

To understand how commodity money emerges, we return in more detail to the easy money trap we first introduced in Chapter 1, and begin by differentiating between a good's market demand (demand for consuming or holding the good for its own sake) and its monetary demand (demand for a good as a medium of exchange and store of value). Any time a person chooses a good as a store of value, she is effectively increasing the demand for it beyond the regular market demand, which will cause its price to rise. For example, market demand for copper in its various industrial uses is around 20 million tons per year, at a price of around $5,000 per ton, and a total market valued around $100 billion. Imagine a billionaire deciding he would like to store $10 billion of his wealth in copper. As his bankers run around trying to buy 10% of annual global copper production, they would inevitably cause the price of copper to increase. Initially, this sounds like a vindication of the billionaire's monetary strategy: the asset he decided to buy has already appreciated before he has even completed his purchase. Surely, he reasons, this appreciation will cause more people to buy more copper as a store of value, bringing the price up even more. But even if more people join him in monetizing copper, our hypothetical copper-obsessed billionaire is in trouble. The rising price makes copper a lucrative business for workers and capital across the world. The quantity of copper under the earth is beyond our ability to even measure, let alone extract through mining, so practically speaking, the only binding restraint on how much copper can be produced is how much labor and capital is dedicated to the job.

Differentiation in an existing market can take one of three forms. You can describe differences in product attributes (faster, cheaper, less filling, 30% more), in distribution channel (pizza in 30 minutes, home delivery, see your nearest dealer, build it yourself on the Web), or in service (five-year, 50,000-mile warranty; 90-day money-back guarantee; lifetime warranty).

We all know that, particularly in mature markets, the quality at the product level hardly offers a perceivable and big enough difference between competing products, as indicated by the success of private labels. And since, in most categories, customers are quite satisfied with the product performance, a relevant differentiation at the pure product level is increasingly hard to provide.

Organizational leaders often accept and act on two fundamental assumptions. One is that market boundaries and industry conditions are given. You cannot change them. You have to build your strategy based on them. 4 The other is that, to succeed within these environmental constraints, an organization must make a strategic choice between differentiation and low cost. Either it can deliver greater value to customers at a greater cost and hence a higher price, or it can deliver reasonable value at a lower cost. But it can’t do both. Hence, the essence of strategy is seen as making a value-cost trade-off.

That realization helped Moesta and his team begin to understand the struggle these potential home buyers faced. “I went in thinking we were in the business of new home construction,” recalls Moesta. “But I realized we were instead in the business of moving lives.” With this understanding of the Job to Be Done, dozens of small, but important, changes were made to the offering. For example, the architect managed to create space in the units for a classic dining room table by reducing the size of the second bedroom by 20 percent. The company also focused on helping buyers with the anxiety of the move itself, which included providing moving services, two years of storage, and a sorting room space on the premises where new owners could take their time making decisions about what to keep and what to discard without the pressure of a looming move. Instead of thirty pages of customized choices, which actually overwhelmed buyers, the company offered three variations of finished units—a move that quickly reduced the “cold feet” contract cancellations from five or six a month to one. And so on. Everything was designed to signal to buyers: we get you. We understand the progress you’re trying to make and the struggle to get there. Understanding the job enabled the company to get to the causal mechanism of why its customers might pull this solution into their lives. It was complex, but not complicated. That, in turn, allowed the housing company to differentiate its offering in ways competitors weren’t likely to copy—or even understand. A jobs perspective changed everything. The company actually raised $ 3,500 (profitably), which included covering the cost of moving and storage. By 2007, when sales in the industry were off by 49 percent and the market all around them was plummeting, the developers had actually grown the business 25 percent.

Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) have been around in the telecom world since the dawn of the 21st century. However, since their inception, their role has kept on changing. From broadly voice-based service providers to 3G purveyors, MVNOs have evolved in their services with time. Nowadays, in this world of intense competition, the success of MVNO completely depends on their ability to think out of the box. It is their ingenuity in creating customer-driven plans that decides their fate in today’s heavily saturated telecom market. The present-day MVNO subscribers are finicky, moody and disloyal. It is an MVNO’s task to inspire confidence in them, attract them towards their services and ensure that they stay loyal. The Challenge Faced by Different MVNOs Evoking customer trust and then ensuring that it is maintained is probably the toughest challenge faced by an MVNO in telecom. Especially in the competitive world of today that demands a differentiation in service along with an attractive pricing model. Based on their infrastructural capabilities, MVNOs can be divided into: 1. Skinny MVNOs: Equipped with their own voice mail, content applications, SMSC, prepaid and VAS. 2. Thin MVNOs: Apart from the infrastructure above, they also have AUC, EIR, HLR, and IN. 3. Thick MVNOs: Along with infrastructure of a thin MVNO, thick MVNOs also have a VLR and MSC. Regardless of the kind of MVNO that you are running, there are some major challenges that you need to overcome. While a skinny MVNO does not have to worry too much about the infrastructure, he cannot scale his operations as well as a thin or thick MVNO. On the other hand, a thick MVNO may be able to scale his operations well, but he might get too involved in managing the infrastructure with very little time for branding and marketing. The Importance of MVNE/MVNA Partnership for Overcoming Challenges As MVNOs are considerably smaller than a full-fledged MNO (Mobile Network Operator), they need support from MVNEs (Mobile Virtual Network Enablers) to get their job done. A capable MVNE with a comprehensive MVNO software solution like Telgoo5 can provide the following benefits to an MVNO: 1. Better billing – Billing is probably the toughest task for an MVNO to undertake all by itself. Any mistake or inefficiency in billing tasks can have a major bearing on MVNO subscribers. But when you partner with an MVNE like Vcare, you get access to a cutting-edge MVNO billing software solution. With a convergent billing solution by your side, you can create itemized bills with details of all types of services used by your subscribers. 2. Profitable deals with MNOs – Partnership with a competent MVNE/MVNA can help you get better-priced deals with an MNO. This will allow you to deliver the services at a lower rate to your MVNO subscribers while still making a profit. 3. Avoid red tape – Running a successful MVNO operation requires you to get into contracts with different carriers and vendors. By partnering with a competent MVNE like Vcare (who already has fully-licensed platforms and contracts with vendors), you are able to bypass the process of signing new deals, thereby saving considerable time and effort.

Branding is a key communication tool and technique, which provides both consumers and manufactures with a way of differentiating their product or service.

the tension between commoditization and product differentiation — that is, between wanting to sell in a thick market to buyers even if they don’t care who you are, and trying to make your product special enough that many buyers will care enough about you to seek you out.

What Is Personal Branding?  Personal branding is the process of identifying the unique and differentiating value that you can bring to an organization, team, and/or project and communicating it in a professionally memorable and consistent manner in all of your actions and outputs, both online and offline, to all current and prospective stakeholders in your career.

In today’s world, clicks are sexier than bricks. There

The bricks of the supply chain are analogous to the children’s story The Three Little Pigs. When

In the early days of supply chain management, manufacturing and distribution processes were insourced. Companies owned their bricks and mortar, and products were made and sold within the same region. Today’s supply chain is largely outsourced. Manufacturing

In the aforementioned Intellectual Birdhouse, which focuses on artistic practice as research, Michael Schwab examines the role of the artists' artist and, in doing so, extends Foster's reflections when discussing 'love value' over exchange value. Drawing on the work of Bourdieu among others, Schwab describes what values the new archival context suggests for institutions that are looking to recoup their losses: "the 'artists' artist' is too epistemologically demanding on the market, which fails to capitalize (often during the lifetime of the artist) on the symbolic value that is produced while he or she delivers epistemological gain to his or her peers, who appear to be the only ones who are able to perceive such value in advance of the market." Schwab is arguing that the role of the artist in the production of knowledge through artistic research extends and can be differentiated from symbolic value. It is not the market that distinguishes the value of an artist to the artist, it is their epistemic value. In other words, it is what we can learn from that artist, not just their artworks. This produces a dilemma for the established institution that struggles to identifY the cultural significance and value of the 'artists' artist' until late, sometimes too late, in the lifetime of the subject. It is not necessarily just a lack of vision on the part of museum staff, archivists and curators, but the values these institutions are increasingly forced to place on spectacular exhibitions in order to survive through corporate and media driven sponsored relations. Archivists themselves acknowledge this limitation of working within institutions that have little room to speculate on cultural value except through established forms, such as the emerging contemporary markets. Many seek out and must work in new emerging archives, such as Flat Time House. However, I would also argue that it is the artist's understanding of the potential value of' 'becomingness' through cultural capital that applies to the present moment too. As has been stated by Derrida, the 'vision' to see what needs to be archived is now the work of the artist/s: to anticipate the archive itself. (excerpt from Experiments and Archives in the Expanded Field written by Neal White)

If competitors are determined to grow in a static market, they may start to break the orderly market rules. Producing copies of rivals’ products is tempting because in the short term it ‘steals’ share and makes money. Although competitors with strong technological and marketing skills are unlikely to launch exact copies of rival brands, it is estimated that 97% of new products are not genuine innovations.6 The failure rate of new products is extremely high, around 90% two years after launch, so even though differentiated brands on the whole perform better than me-toos, me-toos are common in markets where innovation is slowing down. Once they get a hold in an industry, there is an inevitable downward pressure on prices.

Role of quality: The quality of the shopping experience provides weaker differential advantages than quality can bring to product brands, but it can still have an impact. As retailers add new services, such as banking, insurance etc., they can strengthen the quality of the shopping experience and enter new markets. Brands,

share. The company’s stock price immediately fell by 26% as the move was widely hailed as a disaster for premium brands. But it was not; it was just the end of a premium brand being overpriced; the problem was that Marlboro had opened up too big of a price premium, opening the door for all kinds of competitors. The event precipitated the end of cigarette price wars because many competitors were unable to compete with a more affordable Marlboro. Within two years, Philip Morris’s stock had fully recovered. The Canadian cola market has demonstrated time and again the consumer’s willingness to switch from Coca-Cola or Pepsi to private label colas if the price differential were greater than $1 for a box of 12 cans. Opening too big a price differential begins a price war by increasing the volume that moves around the market because of price.

My target customer will be? (Tip: how would you describe your primary target customer) The problem my customer wants to solve is? (Tip: what does your customer struggle with or what need do they want to fulfill) My customer’s need can be solved with? (Tip: give a very concise description / elevator pitch of your product) Why can’t my customer solve this today? (Tip: what are the obstacles that have prevented my customer from solving this already) The measurable outcome my customer wants to achieve is? (Tip: what measurable change in your your customer’s life makes them love your product) My primary customer acquisition tactic will be? (Tip: you will likely have multiple marketing channels, but there is often one method, at most two, that dominates your customer acquisition — what is your current guess) My earliest adopter will be? (Tip: remember that you can’t get to the mainstream customer without getting early adopters first) I will make money (revenue) by? (Tip: don’t list all the ideas for making money, but pick your primary one) My primary competition will be? (Tip: think about both direct and indirect competition) I will beat my competitors primarily because of? (Tip: what truly differentiates you from the competition?) My biggest risk to financial viability is? (Tip: what could prevent you from getting to breakeven? is there something baked into your revenue or cost model that you can de-risk?) My biggest technical or engineering risk is? (Tip: is there a major technical challenge that might hinder building your product?)

The solution to fighting competition is to leave behind your competitors with the help of differentiation. The more you will be differentiated from others, the more it will become easier for your customers to pick you over others as well.

The purpose of branding is to create an image that differentiates and/or establishes the product and/or company from other similar entities.

However, a very large component of what is meant by works for our business is that there is a real market there (large enough to sustain a business), we can successfully differentiate from the many competitors out there, we can cost‐effectively

Another lesson from these examples: attacking markets that have weak, unpopular incumbents is infinitely easier than chasing strong, popular occupants. Customers do not easily part with products that do the job for them. They have enough on their plate already. You need massive, not marginal differentiation, or they will simply filter you out as noise.

Men produce hundreds of millions of spermatozoa per day whereas women ovulate at most 400 times between the onset of menarche and the start of menopause. Hence, an ovum is astoundingly more precious than sperm. This inequality in the importance of the male and female gametes drives the differential behaviors of the two sexes. From the perspective of reproductive fitness, a male benefits from engaging in numerous mating dalliances (can impregnate many women with easily reproduced gametes) whereas in light of the dearth of ova women must be extremely judicious in their mating choices. Furthermore, whereas men’s contribution to parenting could be as small as a brief sexual encounter, women bear the costs of gestation and lactation, face the dangers of childbearing (associated with high mortality in the ancestral environment), and are exposed to increased environmental threats associated with reduced mobility when pregnant.

If wine experts don’t use these things and can’t reliably differentiate between a Clos Pegase Merlot and a Cannonball Merlot, it seems likely that professional wine descriptions will continue to proliferate bullshit. Aside from reading the descriptions, people often assume that the quality of a wine is positively correlated with its price.6 This is why marketers only need to make a wine sound expensive. Like many commodities, wine is a Veblen good. Veblen goods are luxury goods whose prices do not follow the typical laws of supply and demand. They are in demand because they are expensive.

Design—that is, utility enhanced by significance—has become an essential aptitude for personal fulfillment and professional success for at least three reasons. First, thanks to rising prosperity and advancing technology, good design is now more accessible than ever, which allows more people to partake in its pleasures and become connoisseurs of what was once specialized knowledge. Second, in an age of material abundance, design has become crucial for most modern businesses—as a means of differentiation and as a way to create new markets. Third, as more people develop a design sensibility, we’ll increasingly be able to deploy design for its ultimate purpose: changing the world.

First, be different. Offer something other rentals on the market don’t; you can differentiate, for example, by allowing a different lease term (like six months), allowing pets, or even offering better management and communication; all three are covered throughout the book.

The ability to command a higher price is the essence of differentiation, a term Porter uses in this somewhat idiosyncratic way. Most people hear the word and immediately think “different,” but they might apply that difference to cost as well as to price. For example, “Ryanair’s low costs differentiate it from other airlines.” Marketers have their own definition of differentiation: it’s the process of establishing in customers’ minds how one product differs from others. Two brands of yogurt may sell for the same price, but you’re told that Brand A has “50 percent fewer calories.” Porter is after something different. He is focused on tracking down the root causes of superior profitability. He is also trying to encourage more precise and rigorous thinking by underscoring the distinction between price effects and cost effects. For Porter, then, differentiation refers to the ability to charge a higher relative price.

Active investors have a number of options available to them. First, they can decide to make their portfolio more aggressive or more defensive than the index, either on a permanent basis or in an attempt at market timing. If investors choose aggressiveness, for example, they can increase their portfolios’ market sensitivity by overweighting those stocks in the index that typically fluctuate more than the rest, or by utilizing leverage. Doing these things will increase the “systematic” riskiness of a portfolio, its beta. (However, theory says that while this may increase a portfolio’s return, the return differential will be fully explained by the increase in systematic risk borne. Thus doing these things won’t improve the portfolio’s risk-adjusted return.)

Active investors have a number of options available to them. First, they can decide to make their portfolio more aggressive or more defensive than the index, either on a permanent basis or in an attempt at market timing. If investors choose aggressiveness, for example, they can increase their portfolios’ market sensitivity by overweighting those stocks in the index that typically fluctuate more than the rest, or by utilizing leverage. Doing these things will increase the “systematic” riskiness of a portfolio, its beta. (However, theory says that while this may increase a portfolio’s return, the return differential will be fully explained by the increase in systematic risk borne. Thus doing these things won’t improve the portfolio’s risk-adjusted return.) Second, investors can decide to deviate from the index in order to exploit their stock-picking ability—buying more of some stocks in the index, underweighting or excluding others, and adding some stocks that aren’t part of the index. In doing so they will alter the exposure of their portfolios to specific events that occur at individual companies, and thus to price movements that affect only certain stocks, not the whole index. As the composition of their portfolios diverges from the index for “nonsystematic” (we might say “idiosyncratic”) reasons, their return will deviate as well. In the long run, however, unless the investors have superior insight, these deviations will cancel out, and their risk-adjusted performance will converge with that of the index.

market. I want to leave you with some key takeaways: Any product can be positioned in multiple markets. Your product is not doomed to languish in a market where nobody understands how awesome it is. Great positioning rarely comes by default. If you want to succeed, you have to determine the best way to position your product. Deliberate, try, fail, test and try again. Understanding what your best customers see as true alternatives to your solution will lead you to your differentiators. Position yourself in a market that makes your strengths obvious to the folks you want to sell to. Use trends to make your product more interesting to customers right now, but be very cautious. Don’t layer on a trend just for the sake of being trendy—it’s better to be successful and boring, rather than fashionable and bewildering. Knowing how to do something is not the same as understanding how to teach someone else how to do it. As leaders, we often become very good at doing things that we have a very hard time explaining to the teams that work with us. This book is my attempt to codify and teach one of the most complicated processes I’ve learned to do in my career. I sincerely hope it offers you a shortcut to better position your products to succeed.

Prove value first; Prove value always.

Many developers and usability professionals still approach interface design by asking what the tasks are. Although this may get the job done, it won’t produce much more than an incremental improvement: It won’t provide a solution that differentiates your product in the market, and very often it won’t really satisfy the user.

By applying the four actions of eliminating, reducing, raising, and creating, they differentiate their profiles from the industry’s average profile.

Effective branding strategies differentiate a school from its competitors, fostering loyalty among existing students, staff, and parents while attracting new ones.

One way to make yourself less vulnerable to copycats is to build a moat around your business. How Can I Build a Moat? As you scale your company, you need to think about how to proactively defend against competition. The more success you have, the more your competitors will grab their battering ram and start storming the castle. In medieval times, you’d dig a moat to keep enemy armies from getting anywhere near your castle. In business, you think about your economic moat. The idea of an economic moat was popularized by the business magnate and investor Warren Buffett. It refers to a company’s distinct advantage over its competitors, which allows it to protect its market share and profitability. This is hugely important in a competitive space because it’s easy to become commoditized if you don’t have some type of differentiation. In SaaS, I’ve seen four types of moats. Integrations (Network Effect) Network effect is when the value of a product or service increases because of the number of users in the network. A network of one telephone isn’t useful. Add a second telephone, and you can call each other. But add a hundred telephones, and the network is suddenly quite valuable. Network effects are fantastic moats. Think about eBay or Craigs-list, which have huge amounts of sellers and buyers already on their platforms. It’s difficult to compete with them because everyone’s already there. In SaaS—particularly in bootstrapped SaaS companies—the network effect moat comes not from users, but integrations. Zapier is the prototypical example of this. It’s a juggernaut, and not only because it’s integrated with over 3,000 apps. It has widened its moat with nonpublic API integrations, meaning that if you want to compete with it, you have to go to that other company and get their internal development team to build an API for you. That’s a huge hill to climb if you want to launch a Zapier competitor. Every integration a customer activates in your product, especially if it puts more of their data into your database, is another reason for them not to switch to a competitor. A Strong Brand When we talk about your brand, we’re not talking about your color scheme or logo. Your brand is your reputation—it’s what people say about your company when you’re not around.

It becomes a question of 'How do we convey our differentiation instantaneously?' and drive a wedge between any apparent (or assumed) sameness in the marketplace.

The key to sustained and profitable growth is to find a repeatable formula that utilizes the most powerful and differentiated strengths in your core and applies them to a series of new "adjacent" markets.

Thanks to time differentials and good telephone service, the world money market, unlike stock exchanges, race tracks, and gambling casinos, practically never closes. London opens an hour after the Continent (or did until February 1968, when Britain adopted Continental time), New York five (now six) hours after that, San Francisco three hours after that, and then Tokyo gets under way about the time San Francisco closes. Only a need for sleep or a lack of money need halt the operations of a really hopelessly addicted plunger anywhere.

In societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions mercilessly. The effects of these two systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five of six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women; others with none. It's what's known as 'the law of the market.

The analogy between infertile heterosexuals and same-sex couples misses the point. The extension of marriage to infertile heterosexual couples serves not to deprecate same-sex couples, but to preserve the equal status of women in marriage. A test for fertility would be unfair to women because all women spend most of their adult lives in a state of infertility. Fertile women are infertile most days of a month, and postmenopausal women are always infertile. A fertility requirement would also render women susceptible to enormous abuse by men, providing a ready excuse for men who would trade in older women for nubile brides. The status of women in marriage would be intolerably diminished through this practice. Infertility is less common among men, as they can sire children into old age. Moreover, men, like women, typically do not discover that they are infertile until they attempt to sire children, at which time they ought already to be married. A measure that serves primarily to protect women and to preserve their equal status within the institution of marriage is not a measure that is an appropriate basis by which to judge that the same should go for same-sex couples. One of the great challenges men and women face in marriage is in coming to terms with their differences while respecting the status of the other as an equal. Acceptance of infertility is a measure promoting this end. A measure to accommodate the reality of sex-based difference in marriage is no reason to extend marriage to same-sex couples. Moreover, accommodation for infertility in no way diminishes the reality that the inequality of the parent-child relationship is what differentiates marriage from other contractual relationships. It is the parent-child relation, as it emerges from sexual difference and procreation, which elevates marriage above a mere contract, and renders it a sacred duty.

Your brand exists to differentiate. “Same crap, different day” won’t do it. A day that goes by without breaking some sacred branding rule is a day a brand has lost to rise above the status quo. By breaking those rules with insight, intelligent and innovation, your brand can get heard in a world that’s simply too busy to listen.

Our current world I submit that we currently live in a climax stage.21 We have a political model that is based on leading in the popular polls--a model where barely differentiated political leaders pretend to be different by steering voters away from important issues and onto subjects that, albeit emotional, are of little consequence to most people--a model where the election is won by the person with the best marketing, and where consistency and integrity are irrelevant. We have an economic model that is based on pulling resources out of the ground and mostly turning them into unnecessary products, getting people to buy the products by convincing them that they need them, then getting them to throw the products away because they're obsolete. This makes people buy the next model and bury the other one in the ground. The sole goal of this seemingly pointless exercise is to work faster and grow the gross domestic product, which measures the resource churn. We live in a world where the money necessary for our way of life comes out of a slit in the wall as long as we keep showing up for work, yet only experts understand the fiat-based money/credit system. We live in a world where food can be heated in a microwave oven at the touch of a button, yet only experts understand how this works. This goes for most of the other technology we use. All we know is that if we press this or that button, things magically happen. We are aware of large-scale problems, but most of us believe that we can't do anything about them. Instead, we believe in a mythical They who will find a solution, just like They have provided all this wonderful technology we surround ourselves with. We may be more technologically advanced as a group, and correctly but myopically hold up technology as our one indicator of "progress,"22 but in terms of individual understanding we have not come far, and once again live according to old concepts. In fact, we might have turned a full cycle from the last climax stage: The Dark Ages.

Stephen Dewar, vice president of operations, cofounded WhalePower with Frank Fish, Bill Bateman and Phil Watts. I've known Stephen for several years and have watched with interest the challenges faced by the company since it was incorporated. I recently asked him if he had advice for aspiring biomimicry entrepreneurs. His number one message: Have a clear vision of why you're taking on your project and where you want to go. Then, like nature, be flexible and adaptable. his staff even made T-shirts that quote one of his favorite sayings: "For every vision, there is an equal and opposite revision." Second: Do your homework. Be deeply interested in the science, so you can clearly differentiate what's not just a good biomimetic idea but one for which there is a strong market demand.

A common mistaken conclusion made by companies is they think ‘people are cheap’ and want only the best price. That’s only true if you’re only giving them the same dismal choices with no differentiation and thus no value. That is the exact point when consumers start to look at price.

Service is an intangible set of benefits, created by a series of activities. Over the last decade in the IT industry, the distinction between “products” and “services” is blurred, as products are positioned as services, and services are packaged as products. To blur the distinction between products and services is more of a marketing strategy and does not constitute real differentiation. Not only will the sales and pricing strategy between products and services greatly differ, but so will the management approach. Solution is not service, either.

Differential factor. When you strategically develop your value-based résumé, you will define the differential factor. The differential factor represents highly valuable skills, qualifications, and other employment assets that set you apart from other qualified candidates, that make you STAND OUT. Oftentimes, the differential factor is what tips the hiring scale in your favor! For instance, if you have an industry-wide reputation, your reputation might be the differential factor. If you are a black belt in Six Sigma, that may constitute the differential factor. A number of years ago, I coached a chief financial officer who worked for a legendary golf professional. Having worked for a famous golf professional was the differential factor because many hiring managers found it unique and intriguing to interview (and hire) someone who worked for a celebrity. Perhaps you are bilingual; this may represent the differential factor. When you identify the differential factor, you’ll provide your job campaign with a distinct advantage in landing a job quickly in the toughest of job markets.

No amount of marketing will change an experience.” —Brian Solis Customer experience is everything that happens when people encounter your brand. And whether it’s online or offline, you get to design it. Most people don’t put money on the table and hope that they hate the results of their choice. They actually want to fall in love with you and your brand. It’s your job to give them a reason to. The feeling your customer leaves with, as she walks out the door or clicks away from your website, is your best opportunity to differentiate your brand. Commodities are just stuff with a fixed value—until they’re not. The brands you love and talk about are not the ones that competed on price or features. They are the ones that changed how it felt to buy a cup of coffee, slip on a pair of shoes, or open a laptop in a café.

The glorious world of work stumbles at various obstacles: pregnancy, age, lack of education, desperation (particularly of migrant and illegal workers, the nannies and cleaners who work so that richer women can do the same). The job market continues to differentiate between men and women – the most blatant is the surprisingly resilient pay differential for the same jobs, and the predominance of women in part-time and badly-paid work.

Luxury consumer items are typically differentiated from ordinary items through a significantly higher level of quality, price, rarity and aesthetic attributes. It is further augmented by intangible benefits and associations, although this is often based on perception.

Well, coming back to public issues and small investors, it is worth mentioning one example from ICICI bank. Towards the end of 2005 ICICI bank conducted its FPO to raise close to Rs 5,000 crores. It was announced that retail investors would be allotted shares at a rate fiver percent below the cutoff price determined by book building process.   Every other section of investors were allotted shares at Rs 525 each. The same shares were offered to retail investors at Rs 498.75. A company can propose to issue shares at different prices for different categories of investors. Such a facility is known as ‘differential pricing’. That would happen only if the company feels it would be difficult to get rid of the supply to a particular section of investors. Otherwise,

For example, suppose you are seeking a job as a retail manager. You might bring added value by being fluent in English, Spanish, and French. Being trilingual may not be part of the job description but can be a valuable asset when working with diverse employees and customers who speak Spanish and French. This Value-Added message may tip the scale in your favor. Possibly you are seeking a job as a fifth grade teacher. If you are an expert in computers and computer programming, these skills may not be part of the job description but might be perceived as having high value to an academic institution. If you are an expert electrician, but you are also highly skilled in sales, this added value of contributing to new business development efforts might be the differentiator, the added skill that will help you land a job quickly in tough markets.

In 2001, my co-workers at PayPal and I would often get lunch on Castro Street in Mountain View. We had our pick of restaurants, starting with obvious categories like Indian, sushi, and burgers. There were more options once we settled on a type: North Indian or South Indian, cheaper or fancier, and so on. In contrast to the competitive local restaurant market, PayPal was at that time the only email-based payments company in the world. We employed fewer people than the restaurants on Castro Street did, but our business was much more valuable than all of those restaurants combined. Starting a new South Indian restaurant is a really hard way to make money. If you lose sight of competitive reality and focus on trivial differentiating factors—maybe you think your naan is superior because of your great-grandmother’s recipe—your business is unlikely to survive.

Why, however, would there be three disciplines to study the present but only one to study the past? Because the dominant liberal ideology of the nineteenth century insisted that modernity was defined by the differentiation of three social spheres: the market, the state, and the civil society. The three spheres operated, it was asserted, according to different logics, and it was good to keep them separated from each other—in social life and therefore in intellectual life. They needed to be studied in different ways, appropriate to each sphere—the market by economists, the state by political scientists, and the civil society by sociologists.

market alternatives call out the budget and thus the market category, and product alternatives call out the differentiation.

> In the 21st century, intellectual capital is what will matter in the job market and will help a country grow its economy. Investments in biosciences, computers and electronics, engineering, and other growing high-tech industries have been the major differentiator in recent decades. More careers than ever now require technical skills so in order to be competitive in those fields, a nation must invest in STEM studies. Economic growth has slowed and unemployment rates have spiked, making employers much pickier about qualifications to hire. There is now an overabundance of liberal arts majors. A study from Georgetown University lists the five college majors with the highest unemployment rates (crossed against popularity): clinical psychology, 19.5 percent; miscellaneous fine arts, 16.2 percent; U.S. history, 15.1 percent; library science, 15 percent; and (tied for No. 5) military technologies and educational psychology, 10.9 percent each. Unemployment rates for STEM subjects hovered around 0 to 3 percent: astrophysics/astronomy, around 0 percent; geological and geophysics engineering, 0 percent; physical science, 2.5 percent; geosciences, 3.2 percent; and math/computer science, 3.5 percent. 

Lyotard addresses... in Postmodern Fables... [that] ideas of difference, alterity and multiculturalism have become nothing more than streams of cultural capital, streams which themselves fashion, and are fashioned by, the demands of the global market. Hence, the following irony: 'What cultural capitalism has found is the marketplace of singularities'. The result of this discovery, which even reduces the 'postmodern' celebration of difference or otherness to a marketable strategy, is that ideas are stripped of their intrinsic value (value-rationality) and are judged by their value as commodities. This leads to the production of thought that is itself devoid of difference, for streams of cultural capital 'must all go in the right direction' and 'must converge'. Global capitalism, while appearing to affirm the potentiality of cultural differentiation, in fact subordinates difference and alterity to an instrumental logic of exchange, performance and control.

but with complementary skills and know-how for the core team (absolutely the founders) make certain to climb the ladder on the appropriate wall as you’re starting out—that is, identifying and targeting the right growing market add lots of value to your clients/customers through your product and services differentiate clearly what you do in comparison to your competitors, all the while remembering whom you and your team serve keep innovating Furthermore, if you are entrepreneurial, you need to craft and implement a strong marketing and distribution strategy, be a

Business Plan Writers If you need a business plan in less than a week, our consulting service can help! Our business plan consultants will create a business strategy that will impress your investors. We looked at all the best business plan writing services and compared their features and pricing. Here is our in depth comparison and recommendations. A business plan writing service is a team of business experts that take your ideas & numbers, combine it with some of their own research and produce a professional, well-formatted business plan. We looked at the 3 top business plan writing services and compared their features and pricing. From start-up guidance to operations consulting, your company can become more successful with the support of one of our business consultants. First, let our team learn more about your business and listen to your needs. Then, we’ll identify key areas of opportunity, and help you to implement the right business plan and strategy for the growth of your company. It was a good startup. It had a good idea and, much more important, a market window, differentiation and experience to make it happen. One of my first engagements in business planning was as business plan consultant to a startup with three experienced founders. I met with them several times, listened always, and did their business plan. I built the financial model, wrote the text, and produced the document as a business plan document. But I wasn’t part of the team.

As you'll soon see, coming up with winning products is never easy. We need a product that our customers love, yet also works for our business. However, a very large component of what is meant by works for our business is that there is a real market there (large enough to sustain a business), we can successfully differentiate from the many competitors out there, we can cost‐effectively acquire and engage new customers, and we have the go‐to‐market channels and capabilities required to get our product into the hands of our customers.

me, an inefficient market is one that is marked by at least one (and probably, as a result, by all) of the following characteristics: • Market prices are often wrong. Because access to information and the analysis thereof are highly imperfect, market prices are often far above or far below intrinsic values. • The risk-adjusted return on one asset class can be far out of line with those of other asset classes. Because assets are often valued at other-than-fair prices, an asset class can deliver a risk-adjusted return that is significantly too high (a free lunch) or too low relative to other asset classes. • Some investors can consistently outperform others. Because of the existence of (a) significant misvaluations and (b) differences among participants in terms of skill, insight and information access, it is possible for misvaluations to be identified and profited from with regularity. This last point is very important in terms of what it does and does not mean. Inefficient markets do not necessarily give their participants generous returns. Rather, it’s my view that they provide the raw material—mispricings—that can allow some people to win and others to lose on the basis of differential skill.

Clear and persuasive copywriting. Classic, heartfelt storytelling that speaks to people’s everyday problems. A strong and well-communicated differentiator, so I stand out from the competition. An email list I control and regularly provide value to. Informative, insightful content that delivers value upfront while also moving people toward a sale. Long-term relationships that will continue to bear fruit for years. Authentic testimonials that help people see themselves in what I’m offering.

Ramakrishna Paramhans Ward, PO mangal nagar, Katni, [M.P.] 2nd Floor, Above KBZ Pay Centre, between 65 & 66 street, Manawhari Road Mandalay, Myanmar Phone +95 9972107002 Market research plays a pivotal role in shaping business strategies and facilitating growth in dynamic markets like Myanmar. As businesses navigate through the complexities of the Myanmar market landscape, the expertise and insights provided by market research agencies become invaluable. One such prominent player in the field is AMT Market Research Agency, known for its comprehensive approach and tailored solutions. This article delves into the significance of market research for businesses in Myanmar, explores the services offered by AMT, showcases success stories, analyzes emerging trends in the industry, and presents client testimonials, providing a holistic view of the market research agency in Myanmar # 1. Introduction to Market Research in Myanmar ## Understanding the Market Landscape Market research in Myanmar is like exploring a hidden gem - full of potential but requiring a keen eye to uncover the treasures within. As one of the fastest-growing economies in Southeast Asia, Myanmar presents a unique blend of traditional values and modern aspirations that make it a fascinating market to study. ## Challenges and Opportunities in Myanmar Navigating the market in Myanmar can be akin to a thrilling adventure, with challenges and opportunities around every corner. From infrastructural limitations to cultural nuances, businesses face hurdles that require insightful market research to overcome. However, with the right approach, the untapped potential of Myanmar's market can lead to significant growth and success. # 2. Overview of AMT Market Research Agency ## Background and History of AMT AMT Market Research Agency is not your average player in the market research scene. With a rich history rooted in a passion for uncovering insights and a commitment to excellence, AMT has established itself as a trusted partner for businesses looking to navigate Myanmar's complex market landscape. ## Key Differentiators of AMT What sets AMT apart from the rest of the pack? It's not just their cutting-edge methodologies or their team of expert researchers, but their genuine enthusiasm for understanding the intricacies of the Myanmar market. AMT doesn't just deliver data - they offer valuable insights that drive strategic decision-making. # 3. Importance of Market Research for Businesses in Myanmar ## Driving Informed Decision-Making In a market as dynamic as Myanmar, making informed decisions is crucial for business success. Market research provides the necessary data and insights that empower businesses to make strategic choices with confidence. With AMT by your side, you can trust that your decisions are backed by solid research and analysis. ## Mitigating Risks in a Dynamic Market The only constant in the Myanmar market is change. With shifting consumer behaviors, regulatory landscapes, and competitive pressures, businesses face a myriad of risks. Market research acts as a compass, guiding businesses through the uncertainties and helping them navigate the market with clarity and foresight. # 4. Services Offered by AMT Market Research Agency ## Quantitative Research Solutions Numbers don't lie, and neither does quantitative research. AMT offers a range of quantitative research solutions that provide businesses with statistically sound data to make informed decisions. From surveys to data analysis, AMT ensures that your business is equipped with the numbers it needs to succeed. ## Qualitative Research Approaches Sometimes, it's not just about the numbers - it's about understanding the why behind the what. Qualitative research approaches offered by AMT delve deep into consumer insights, behaviors, and motivations, providing businesses with a rich understanding of the market landscape.

As brands fight to differentiate identity, sonic branding is a growing marketing mechanism.