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To Create lasting break-throughs use oxymorons

If you are a great marketeer but you want to be seminal, read on. If you are apragmatic visionary, keep reading, if you are a care taker marketer then honestlydon’t bother. If you are a pragmatic visionary without an organization committedto longterm change, then read it when you are in a new organisation, I’d rathersave your time.This article will give you the simple step by step framework to create break through categories that provide sustainable advantage – very simply it’s aboutthe power of reconciling opposite end benefits in a category to create a new one.Reconciling opposite end benefits (like Apple did, see below) is very, very hard toachieve and that’s what makes it sustainable. A lot of people talk about theconcept but they don’t illustrate a) why its useful or b) a systematic way toachieve it.Karen Walker is a big believer in the power of opposites; she quite rightly knowsthat trends go in cycles so the ‘next new thing’ is usually the opposite of whatcame before.

But this article isn’t about fashion’s fads, it’s about makingmoney by creating lasting change through using a new oxymoron.

Sofor example having had about ten years of minimalism – new London restaurantsare embracing opulence, out with white and Asian simplicity in with gold andblack. (For example, Places like The Wolseley in Piccadilly.) This example is justabout a change of style, the very opposite of whats required to create longtermchange.

Examples that illustrate category break through

New Zealand is extraordinary at coming up with ingenious new ideas for nicheconcepts but there is no example whatsoever of creating a new oxymoron for anew category consciously, opportunity knocks and that’s why we are writing thisarticle. The closest example would be New Zealand wine with its down to earthsophistication but that was an accident and arguably owned as much by Australiaas New Zealand, no brand consciously set out to establish the wine categoryusing this oxymoron. Although it’s old, ‘Apple’ is one of the easiest example to illustrate the concept.Before Apple in the 80’s – computers were seen as the domain of geeks, theywere black boxes that were hard to use. In fact the whole category of electronicgoods was dominated by the following key dynamics:High Tech/ High Quality & Boring = Difficult to use for non IT specialistsLow Tech/Low Quality & More Interesting = Easy to use for non IT specialistsbut no good!

The result was that people thought of ‘good computers’ being mainframes or youhad to use code which hardly anyone could use. So what’s the Oxymoron here –the opposite of what the computer category offered in the early 80’s? It’s simpleto say – I want an interesting, high tech/high quality computer. Now we all knowthat Apple isn’t as big today as in its heyday but it is still owns and continues toown the idea of a quality computer with a difference. It still owns the category itestablished. Sounds really easy to say now but I’d like to give you some idea of how shocking that would appear at the time by translating that into somemodern day examples.I want weight loss by eating super indulgent desserts. I want cigarettes that helpclear out my lungs. I want a car that actively improves the environment. I want acustomized holiday without any effort doing the research myself. Getting thepicture?Malcolm Evans is a leading global semiotician who is employed to find theoxymoron (see below) – he runs a unique company which consults globally forCoca-Cola, Levis Unilever and many others who search out the Holy Grailoxymoron. We’re lucky enough to have worked with him on several occasions,

the trick lies in finding the most powerful oxymoron that is relevant forthe customer and believe me when I say this is very hard to do.The StepsStep 1 – Generate some core end benefits of a category

What are the core end benefits of your category? Now this sounds really easydoesn’t it? We did this exercise for the brand think tank for a large trans Tasmanbank who shall remain nameless. They collectively had been in the industry forabout 400 years. Guess what, they didn’t know what their core category endbenefits were. They had never thought about it and none of their millions spenton research could answer the question for them.So some examples of core end benefits would be for drinks, refreshment and forPalm Pilots portable organization.

Step 2 – Focus on the end benefits that are the most extreme and yetgeneric

Let me give you an example of this. Timotei shampoo (a little known brand inNew Zealand but it was huge in Europe/US) started off the whole trend of reconciling the idea of high tech science with nature in the shampoo category inthe early 90’s. It is the reason why Pantene was developed by P&G and a whole

host of new entrants like Fructis. They were all kicked off by the market situationin shampoo prior to Timotei, which went something like this:Natural Shampoo = Natural & Gentle - Natural shampoo is gentle on your hairbut doesn’t clean it effectivelyChemical Shampoo = Chemical & Effective - Chemical shampoo is effective onyour hair but damages itNew Timotei Oxymoron = Natural Effectiveness – Potent natural shampoo whichworks gently and effectivelyTimotei however didn’t continue to revitalize its products (particularly its productingredients) and so it lost ground, it couldn’t hold onto the category it hadcreated. As the anonymous saying goes, ‘Common sense isn’t common.’

Step 3 – What fundamental change to the product would be required tomake this happen?

In the case of Timotei they used nature’s ‘extracts’ to give a sense of potencyand create a multi million dollar brand. But the point is to find out if the idealoxymoron is hard to do or physically impossible. For example cigarettes usingtobacco which clean my lungs are (to my knowledge) a physical impossibility, sothe idea is flawed. However you can ask yourself to approach the productconstruction from another angle. What other ingredients or service elementscould be put together to give the same result? If the idea is hard, not impossible,like customized package holidays, then you are onto something – but the central

guiding thought needs to be opposites an oxymoron.

Step 4 – Develop some brand directions

Once you’ve created new brand space – you’ve got to own it permanently. You’ve got to implicitly create a brand which reconciles these opposites – forexample Rexona (made by Unilever) being a mega brand does this well – it’sabout safe efficacy and it defines this for the category – but the brand does notsay this directly. Contrast this to Lynx which is a second entrant from Unilever,its brand essence is about attraction, Lynx can never recreate the category as itstands because it hasn’t created a new oxymoron, its just a very successful nichebrand.

Step 5 – Test your brand directions and ensure they own the corecategory space

Step 4&5 are intertwined and they are crucial for longevity – BA tried to own theairline category’s core benefits of personal, anonymous service in the mid to late90’s. Guess what? They didn’t have the organizational commitment to sustain it;