Marketing Your Way Out of Commoditization

Bruce Greenwald,  a Columbia Business School professor, once famously said “in the long run, everything is a toaster,” in reference to his view that at some point, all great innovations become commodities that are sought by consumers on the basis of price alone.

By today’s standards, even toasters are more than “just a toaster” with countless product and marketing innovations over the last 110 years that transformed the simple device into a multibillion-dollar industry.

Bruce’s flawed conventional wisdom is shared by many managers in companies everywhere whenever they encounter a moment of ‘price only’ competition. They immediately reach for the commodity panic button and slash prices, service, profits and often their own necks in the process.  Innovation and better marketing could have saved them.

A few tips on marketing your way out of commodity status:

• Consider price as only part of the equation.
• Develop differentiation based on competence. (use thought leadership marketing)
• Understand your customers.
• Segment, target and position.

Read the rest of the article here.