The Wisdom of Prom-goers.
I have a niece who’s now finishing her senior year of high school. Now that it’s May, she’s fervently in the market for a prom dress. And she has the same concern all young women prepping for the prom share: will my dress be so unique—so distinctly me—that I’ll be the only one wearing that dress at the dance? I mentioned this recently while speaking at a marketing conference in Chicago, and asked the women in the audience to remember what the primary driver was in purchasing their own prom dress. A decade or more removed from the event, they all immediately recalled a fundamental desire for their dress to be a one-of-a-kind presence.
Why am I telling you this? Because prom goers have a lot to teach us about positioning. Is your company or product going to the prom wearing the same dress everyone else is wearing? That is, is your brand—including its core message and overall look and feel—very similar to the competition? This is easy enough to find out. Across most industries, a simple competitive audit often reveals too many same-old, me-too messages and shared color palettes. A teenager knows the inherent value in being differentiated on a crowded dance floor. Does your brand?
comment// Dave Cole
date// May 5th, 2009
I wonder if a survey of younger students might find a stronger desire to belong, instead of to stand out…. which might just parallel an earlier phase, along the path to maturation, of a brand.