A Beautiful Constraint: How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It's Everyone's Business

APPENDIX

The unreasonable challenger

This appendix contains a little more detail on BAV's analysis for us of brands whose core offer combines two criteria for choice, historically regarded as trade-offs in the category: “green” and “performance,” in cars, for example, being considered two quite separate poles until Tesla united them. We wanted to understand what impact uniting these poles has on what BAV calls energized differentiation or brand energy, that is, a sense of momentum for a brand in the mind of the consumer that is an indicator of their future potential. BAV's work with academics suggests a strong correlation between brand energy and market value (see page 80).

We looked at US examples in three mature, mass-market categories. In quick service restaurants (QSR) we looked at “good value” versus “healthy”; in luxury automobiles we looked at “green” versus “performance;” and in household cleaning products we looked at “efficiency” versus “socially conscious.” We looked at category-level data and then drilled down into specific brand cases to illustrate the larger point more clearly.

The two headlines from this analysis are:

• Not surprisingly, given how brands have historically regarded these choice criteria as quite separate poles and rarely, if ever, addressed them both in the core offering, the consumer does indeed see them as distinct and separate. Few brands are seen as offering both polar attributes in their respective categories
• Those brands that do offer both also ...