Disruptive difference

Disruptive difference is double difficult.

Different is already something we humans don’t like. Different is not good, because when things are not to our liking, don’t fall within our internal parameters of value and acceptability, we disregard its impact and therewith its potency! In difference lie the seeds of disruption. In similarity, only obsolescence and ultimately decay. When we seek for the true differentiating feature of the brand, do we truly seek for difference or only for small deviations of what we as the originators of branding think and feel? As Michael Porter and Gary Hamel have both put it: the essence of strategy is discovering meaningful differences that make a firm inimitable, singular, and unique. Unique simply means different. Means getting out of your comfort zone. Becoming familiar with disruption, embracing the opposite lines of thinking. Strategy’s cornerstone remains to build a disruptive different business. Yet disruptive different is the next step. Disruptive means that you don’t play by the book, by the customary conventions but reinvent them yourselves. Disruptive difference is something out of the ordinary and therefore difficult to test with consumers. They don’t know or see the new and can only disregard the disruption. If Red Bull would have stuck to the conventions they wouldn’t have build a billion dollar brand out of a herb drink. Finally, disruptive difference is only to be done when it fits the organisation. When the culture is driven to deliver the difference. Because at the end of the day, you can’t become something you are not. That’s unfortunately only imitation!