Contrary (or Reverse) Brands

Other “reverse brands” mentioned in Moon’s book besides Google include Ikea, JetBlue, and In-N-Out Burger, among others. As she mentions in the book, reverse brands eliminate and elevate.

Youngme Moon has written a remarkable book called Different: Escaping The Competitive Herd. Moon, a marketing professor at Harvard, deconstructs the business of marketing and exposes something that is not a surprise — marketing has become predictable, interchangeable and un-creative.

Of course, that’s a broad generalization, but one that she aptly demonstrates to be true. At the same time, it provides Moon with a platform to showcase what she calls “reverse brands” or “oxymoron brands,” which are often the most successful in their categories by going out of their way to be different from the herd and single-minded in their approach. As she says, marketing is supposed to be about creating meaningful differences, and yet most brands bludgeon us with a proliferation of sameness.

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How do brands that go in the opposite direction by providing fewer amenities, fewer services, fewer product features become so distinctive and successful? What are their similarities — or are they all so unique their strategy can’t be duplicated?

What is both unique and similar about each of these single-minded “reverse brands?” One of the things that she discovered is that “there is a kind of difference that says nothing, and there is a kind of difference that speaks volumes.” As Moon writes, for difference to work — to resonate — it’s got to deviate and it’s got to be charismatic.

Google is a prototype of a “reverse-positioned brand.” It deliberately reduced the number of features it offered, while its competitors were adding features by the fistful. Google decided that while users thought they wanted more features, what they really wanted (and maybe didn’t realize it) was a simpler, easier home page for searching and browsing. While every other portal was a cacophony of visual stimulation, Google showed up almost naked.

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Related book: Different: Escaping The Competitive Herd