Businesses often think too hard to determine “what makes them different than the rest”. An honest method to differentiate your business from others is one which has been proven to work for both Avis and Levy’s Rye Bread. In the same way humans are all different, businesses can be too.

This is the same way Levy’s positioned itself as a great bread brand for everyone. Levy’s is Jewish made, which is what makes it different. One of their ad posters featured a Native American biting into a Levy’s Rye Bread sandwich and the “You don’t have to be Jewish” campaign is known as one of the most successful uses of cultural and racial identity in public advertising. This campaign transformed Levy’s into New York’s top seller of rye bread. Nowadays, we find businesses differentiate themselves by offering “higher quality”, “better value” or “better product”. Differentiation is about being different than your competition, perhaps even the opposite. How can better quality be different when no one else claims to offer poor quality? We live in a world where every business claims to be offering the best product at the best price. Yes, advertising is not as effective as it once was and too many products are chasing the same consumers. But if businesses apply the right strategies to differentiate, surely, they can survive in today’s vast arena of products. Better differentiate your business before you get cannibalized!